united-states copyright public-domain
Can I scan in pre-1923 photographs from books and upload them to wikipedia without violating copyright?
<p>Arcadia Publishing has the <em>Images of America</em> book series, many of which have pre-1923 photographs.</p>
<p>Same thing for Eyewitness Books. For example they have a book on money which has images of coins and currency going back hundreds of years.</p>
<p>My question is...  could I scan in some of these images from these books and upload them to, say, Wikipedia?</p>
<p>In the United States anything published before 1923 is public domain but what exactly does that mean? Like if I want to upload a pre-1923 image from one of these books to Wikipedia do I have to track down the original and upload scan it in myself or can I rely on the scans that other people did?</p>

<h2>Date and Place of Publication Matter</h2>
<p>If the photographs were <strong>published in the US</strong> prior to 1923 (or indeed now prior to 1927) by a US resident, they are now in the public domain (PD) in the US under US law. Wikipedia will generally accept such photos, and the persons who would otherwise be the copyright holders will not be able to  bring an infringement suit in a US court.</p>
<p>If the pictures were taken before 1923, but not published until after 1980, they will be under copyright until 70 years after the death of the photographer, or until 2047, whichever is later.</p>
<p>If they were taken before 1923, but published after 1927 with a proper copyright notice, and if published in 1963 or before, and their copyright was properly renewed 28 years after publication, the copyright lasts for 95 years after publication.</p>
<p>There are various other sets of circumstance that may apply. The famous Cornell chart <a href="https://guides.library.cornell.edu/copyright/publicdomain" rel="nofollow noreferrer">&quot;Copyright Term and the Public Domain&quot;</a> covers all the relevant cases and spells out in which cases works are in the public domain, or if not, how long the copyright lasts for.</p>
<p>If the photograph(s) were first published outside the US, or the photographer was neither a US citizen nor a US resident, then a suit could be filed in the country of origin of the photographs, under the laws of that country. Copyright term varies in different countries, but in most it is calculated from the death of the author (the photographer) varying from 50 years to 100 years after the author's death. 70 years is perhaps the most common term, including most countries in Europe.</p>
<p>The Wikimedia Foundation (publisher of Wikipedia) takes the legal position that it is governed only by US law. To the best of my knowledge there has never yet been a successful copyright suit over an image (or text) published on Wikipedia that is PD under US law, but not by the law of its country of origin.</p>
<p>So you will see that the date of publication is a key fact, and the place of publication may also be relevant. The copyright page of the book which you are scanning  will give the date that book was published, and may well give the dates of publication of images included inn the book, if those are earlier.</p>
<p>Under US law, scanning a previously published image will not generally give a new copyright on the image, nor will re-publishing a previously published image. Creating a modified (derivative) version of an image may well give a new copyright on the modified elements, but will not extend the copyright on the original image. (All this is also true for texts.)</p>
<p>The age of the subject of a photo (or other image) is not relevant to the  duration of the copyright of a new, original image of that subject. The date that the image was created (as opposed to being published) will only rarely be relevant.</p>
<h3>Money</h3>
<p>Images of US coins and currency (bills) are a special case. They are considered to be &quot;works of the US Federal Government&quot; and so are not protected by copyright within the US at any time. A new US coin or bill first put out in 1922 would still not be protected within the US.</p>
<p>Money of other countries may be protected, or not, depending on the laws of its country of origin. But money issued before 1927 would be PD under US law.</p>
