I know Alamy accepts vintage content because it's a UK site but not sure about others as copy wright law may be different in other countries like the US

Hi all, some agencies accept vintage content, let say illustration from 18th century book. It's public domain for ages. I believe that some of you have experience with that. Do you send the standard property release for such illustrations?

iStock, it needs to be before 1900. I know they are hit and miss and sometimes don't follow their own rules, but that's the official version in the terms. SS no way. Adobe, says they don't take PD images, I see that they have some? Alamy for myself, and I don't know if they have any official guidelines, I include a property release because I'm using resources that I actually own, I have personally created.

Legally if someone finds something on the Internet, edited to make a new version, and it's been put up by someone else, there could be a legal issue. For that reason I use my own resources, my own scans or my own photos, if I do something vintage. Basically you can NOT copy and copyright something that the copyrights have expired. But if someone makes a new work, which is substantially altered and different, then you might. The question becomes, how much edit, makes something significantly different from the original?

I wouldn't want to depend on an interpretation, of what is substantially altered, when one court may see it one way and another in a different way. Murky waters and potentially legal problems.

Getty licenses PD images and protects that right, claiming. There's a full version of the no one knows the answer, until someone goes to court. 

Good Luck

I wouldn't want to depend on an interpretation, of what is substantially altered, when one court may see it one way and another in a different way. Murky waters and potentially legal problems.

Well, there is noone injured if you sell that image. Author or owner are dead for ages. So who can take it to the court?  On other side we are forced by agencies to claim the ownership and images are licensed with our names as authors. That is not right.

I know that many accept it except SS and BS. My concern is the property release. I know that they accept image if I tick off that I own it. Which is not correct, but on other side there is noone else who can rightfully claim ownership. I speak about really very old images and my own scans. I always own the original source item and I always fill the correct information about the source book.

I tested various ways how to fill the property release, but it was always rejected on some websites (and accepted on other, where probably noone was reading it).

So I just ask if there is other way how to fill the property release/upload without property release. Tick the ownership works. Just I'm not completly sure about it.

SS & BS generally don't take public domain images so you can't submit out of copyright material to them.

See next answer below

SS do actually accept it, but it isn't straightforward. You have to sign a separate agreement. Morphart has posted about it here before.

Which SS offered to me years ago. The complication was, I'd have to have E&O insurance and at the time I got quotes was running around $2000 a year. So yes you are correct and I've followed Morphart's content for years, he's doing a wonderful job in his area. I wasn't willing to bet $2000 that I'd make $2000 a year for the insurance.

Quote from: cosus on December 05, 2021, 18:51

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 05, 2021, 11:52

I wouldn't want to depend on an interpretation, of what is substantially altered, when one court may see it one way and another in a different way. Murky waters and potentially legal problems.

Well, there is noone injured if you sell that image. Author or owner are dead for ages. So who can take it to the court?  On other side we are forced by agencies to claim the ownership and images are licensed with our names as authors. That is not right.

Its called public domain or out of copyright you need to read up on the subject before you start uploading content as archive. 

The general law about copyright is it continues for up to 70 years after the artist/photographer's death.

" On other side we are forced by agencies to claim the ownership and images are licensed with our names as authors. That is not right." sorry what are you trying to say here?   You are not forced by agencies to claim ownership copyright is automatic as soon as the work is produced.  The photographer/author/videographer owns the copyright in the thing they produce.

If I'm interpreting this correctly what they are saying is, the agencies in the TOS and contract say we can only upload images that we "You must own or control the copyright to all content you submit to Shutterstock. This means that you cannot submit work obtained from other sources (e.g., online image search results or websites), or incorporate such work into your content submissions, unless you have permission to do so.
Public domain content cannot be submitted under any circumstances. If you do not have complete rights to the content, you may not submit it."

I don't disagree with you, on the legal grounds, in fact I work from that perspective. But reading literally agencies require us to own or control the copyright, which with PD we don't? Pretty complicated and open ended. Oh and a small, plus, they can make any rules they want for what content they take, even if the laws are not really the same.

And the usual disclaimer, I write from the USA and I work under US laws, anyplace else can and will be different.  https://guides.library.cornell.edu/copyright/publicdomain

With Microstock being a bit uncontrollable, people playing the system any way they can, and people uploading stolen images, or other illegally submitted content, I can understand why the agencies aren't will to accept Public Domain which they would have to spend time and money to check or confirm who actually owns the rights. So they just have an easy solution. No public domain, the artist must own the rights to the images.