Original images and copyrights

[steve B]

As I understand it, and someone who works in copyright law may have a better/different explanation.

You can sell the original. It's a piece of physical property just like for instance a used book or a baseball card.

You might be able to sell copies.
If it was a photo your father took then he might be the copyright holder.
It would depend on his arrangement with the paper and whether he took the picture while working for them.
So if his agreement said all the pictures he took belonged to the paper then it's theirs. If he was freelance or they only got rights to ones they bought it's his.

If it's his and he's still around then you'd need permission form him.
If he's not around. (Condolences of course) Then it would depend on who is/was running the estate, or who got what. That part I have no idea about beyond that.


Whichever way it is, I'd imagine the picture has limited commercial value. So not something you'd make thousands from?
To do it right you'd have an IP lawyer determine whether or not you have copyright. I believe that's fairly expensive.
To do it the iffy way, if it's not a vary valuable image, get an internegative made (Or top quality scan for digital printing) And sell a few. You might want to find out if the paper uses one of the very aggressive rights management companies who sue first. If not they probably won't care about a handful of sales even if they have the rights.

All of this gets trickier if you have the original negative. Sort of a catch 22 where they may have the rights, but you own the only copy. Arguing over it makes it unavailable to anyone.

Steve B