On Sun, 23 May 2004 14:05:03 +0100, Alasdair Baxter put finger to
keyboard and typed:

On Sun, 23 May 2004 11:55:05 +0100, "Bystander"
wrote:

The technical name for this is forgery. Forgery is a criminal offence.
Breaching a decades old copyright is not. I would suggest that you use
technology to overcome your problem.

But is breaching a decades old copyright in a business context a
criminal offence? Would Boots or Jessops be criminally liable if they
copied the photograph for me and charged a fee?

Not criminally liable, but if the original copyright holder found out
then they could be sued in a civil court. And they are perfectly
within their rights to decline to carry out an action which would
place them at risk of being sued, even if it's unlikely.

If the matter is not criminal, is there no mechanism for insuring
against a claim by the original photographer for infringement of
copyright? Might be expensive but so what?

I'm not aware of any such mechanism. If you know that you're not
allowed to do something, then insuring against being caught doing it
(which is what this amounts to) is probably something that the
insurance companies would decline to cover.

Alternatively, is there no photographic equivalent to PRS where you
can pay a royalty to a central body for copyright permission?

No, there isn't.

But this is all really rather pointless - why not just scan the photo
yourself? That way, you're not asking anyone else to breach copyright
on your behalf, and, as long as you're prepared to take the risk of
being sued, there's no problem.

Mark
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