Jan is right. To summarily label an eBay seller to be in violation of copyright
law might be slanderous without any proof other than a broad, reused eBay
description. Further, only the copyright owner can assert copyright ownership.
Not a casual bystander.
Unless you know the intentions under which the original or copy negative were
bought, acquired, traded or sold, it is merely hyperbolic speculation on the
intent and legal doctrine this seller is operating under.
Lemonadesqueeze can sell any negative and doesn't have to detail anything
unless he/she knows the item is a copy and even then, how did he/she derive
that this subject negative is in fact a copy? In addition, a "copy negative"
could fall under a derivative work, another can of worms. And there is no law
requiring a reproduction to be labeled as such. It is an ethical issue, not
legal.
Most every prolific rail photographer with a darkroom traded negatives and
prints. Corbin, Griffith, Hardy, Stringham and a hundred more traded, sold and
gave away negatives.
Many of these negatives were copy negatives but a lot of negatives were
exchanged for other original negatives. The only way to know for sure is to
compare emulsion numbers on the film. And that only works if the emulsion
number is on the negative in question. Basically, no one makes copy negatives
any more. If can be done at a lab but it is very expensive and not something
for eBay.
Most all the prolific photographers wanted to share their work with others and
took steps to see that the material they had was shared with others instead of
being rat-holed in a basement for no one to ever see. They excelled at
disseminating information on a mass basis - think analog social media.
There is no excuse for not asking questions of the seller. But don't believe
the seller has the necessary knowledge to make the statements they profess.
eBay is cloaked in caveat emptor. And sometimes that works out to the buyers'
advantage.
BTW - The negatives I have purchased from Lemonadesqueeze have not been copy
negatives even though they were described as such and the emulsion numbers
supported it.
Randy Danniel
--- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, Jan Kohl <j.kohl@...> wrote:
>
> > The woman selling these copy negatives on eBay, "lemonadesqueeze," has
> access
> to a large collection of railroad prints (her husband's or father's?) and
> makes
> copy negs > from them to sell -- a clear violation of copyright law. She
> simply
> copies the information written on each print in listing the date and location
> for her eBay listings. I've aided > her illegal effort a couple of times
> with
> purchases of copy negs that were quite obviously not taken when or where her
> listing said they were.
>
> Actually, if the collection is from an estate that she is the beneficiary
> from
> (like her husband or father), she is perfectly within her rights to make
> copies
> of negatives. What she *should* do is specify that the purchaser is getting
> a
> "copy", (i.e. a copy of the original negative) or the original. From your
> description it sounds like she is making negative copies (and I think I've
> purchased a few from her). Again, something she has a right to do if she
> owns
> the collection (willed from the original purchaser if she was not the
> photographer), but would cut down on a lot of confusion since many people
> assume
> if they've purchased a negative that they have an original.
>
> Cheers!
>
> Jan Kohl
> castlegraphics.com
>
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