On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 6:58 PM, Thomas Kavanagh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> E.g., I have an unpublished photo of my famous great-grandmother from about
> 1870. It is obviously now more than "70 years after the date of
> creation."  I want to use that image in a biography of her, can I copyright
> it?

The original picture itself is public domain. The image in a biography
of your grandmother is protected as part of the larger work. Now if
you touched it up or modified it in any way, that is a new work and is
protected under copyright.

So for example, if someone got the original photo, they could
reproduce it as many times as they want. But if they copied it from
the book, that is a copyright violation.

Deb

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