Copyright

This is quite a complex subject and it’s very easy to fall foul of the legal requirements without really knowing how it’s happened.

The first thing to remember is that you will need to obtain a signed consent form from the person you are interviewing to say that they agree to you recording them and that they agree to the recording being used for such things as use in education, publications including print, audio or video etc. You need to go through this with them to make quite sure that they understand what their informed consent is all about and that they are assigning their copyright to the group or organisation that is carrying out the interview.

The best thing to do is log-on to the Oral History Society’s website www.ohs.org.uk/ethics where there is a full and clearly explained text on the legal and ethical obligations of an interviewer.

At St Levan we have used a fairly simple form which the interviewee signs to assign copyright to Porthcurno Telegraph Museum.

The copyright of photographs is another complex subject and it’s surprising that copyright has not expired on most that have come into our collection.
As a quick rule-of-thumb it’s worth bearing in mind that in many cases the copyright of a photograph doesn’t expire until 70 years after the death of the originator of the work. To fully research copyright it’s worth obtaining a copy of the book Copyright for Archivists by Tim Padfield.

The edges become very blurred and in our experience, when it came to publishing The Book of St Levan, it was going to be very difficult, in fact impossible, to discover the name of each photograph’s originator and if they were still alive. One thing was almost certain – it would often be unlikely to be 70 years since that person’s death. A comprehensive list of thanks and credits to all those who had loaned the photos in their possession was the easiest solution and would, hopefully, not provoke any legal wrangles.

For the loan of a collection of photographs it’s important to draw up a form that allows the lender to sign agreeing to the group/organisation making a copy and storing it and perhaps, using it within the context of the community history project. Many people express anxiety that their treasured family photos are going to be used for commercial gain and that fear is understandable. Nobody wants to think that an unfair advantage has been taken of them.

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