Allow me to clarify this for everyone.
The issue isn't the item being photographed, but the photograph itself.
Copyright for any photo are owned by the person who took the photo. If I took a picture of an 1888 card, I would own the copyright. It doesn't matter who owns the original card or any original image when the card was produced.
It's perfectly legal to take a picture of a 2021 Topps card and publish it. As long as your not claiming original source material the copyright for the picture belongs to you.
The only time such matters might come into question is if you were to use the image for marketing use. There's some grey area there.
Bottom line, if you want to grab a picture of a card off eBay or someone's website, better get approval from them.
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