Posted By:
CoreyRS.hanusDavid,
Not sure that is completely accurate. Copyright protection expires after a certain period of time. So therefore if I have the only known image of a 19th century team or player, I believe I can prevent someone from using either MY photograph of that image or a photograph taken by someone else under terms restricting its use. In fact that happened to me on eBay. The Just So Young I own to my knowledge is unique. There are two photographs of it, one taken by me and one by Stephen Wong for use in his book "Smithsonian Baseball". Neither may be used by a third party to make reproductions for commercial gain. Yet that is what happened. Someone was selling on eBay reproductions of the card. I notified him that he could not do it and he pulled the auction. My demand to pull it was not based on ethics or manners but the law; he had no legal right to do was he was doing.