I had an interesting situation posed by a small historical society that recently received a large cache of wedding and school photos from the local town photographer (20,000+). The photographer owns the copyright (at least of the wedding photos) and has given the photos AND copyright to the historical society. The historical society is talking about wanting to post these online. While copyright might be clear I am not sure about legal rights of privacy of the subject and the ethics of publishing online the photos of weddings which is an intimate affair in a private space (usually). Additionally, the photographer retired in the 2000s so many of these are quite contemporary. Consent is usually needed for publishing a photograph of an identifiable individual taken in a private place. Also, many people don't realize that often wedding photographers maintain the copyright, and be shocked to find that a historical society now "owns" them and that the public has access to them.

I see a lot of historical organizations publishing wedding and school photos online - though many are nearly over 50 years old, but still I wonder what discussions on the right to privacy have done with posting photos under 70 years old (it is assumed that most people in the photo would have passed on after 70 years thus not having a right to privacy) have been done? I know there have been many conversations on the Right of Privacy on crime scene photos, but I don't know of any discussions of the Right of Privacy and wedding and school portraits. 

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