Future of signed photos in the hobby?

[Seven]

Wanted to chime in. I started collecting signed 8x10's very recently. As long as they're coming from a reliable place, I believe I will continue to do so. They're great ways to get a signature of someone you really want for a not too expensive price point. They can also make nice displays if done properly and not in direct sunlight (Though I'm still learning on this part, if anyone would like to offer the best way to go about displaying signed 8x10's please let me know)
I'm a card collector first, but if a nice 8x10 pops up of a guy I don't have yet, or have been wanting then I'll probably purchase it.

[Fuddjcal]

Originally Posted by Seven

Wanted to chime in. I started collecting signed 8x10's very recently. As long as they're coming from a reliable place, I believe I will continue to do so. They're great ways to get a signature of someone you really want for a not too expensive price point. They can also make nice displays if done properly and not in direct sunlight (Though I'm still learning on this part, if anyone would like to offer the best way to go about displaying signed 8x10's please let me know)
I'm a card collector first, but if a nice 8x10 pops up of a guy I don't have yet, or have been wanting then I'll probably purchase it.

Very easy. take a ink jet photo copy of the 8 x 10 on photo paper and store the original in a top loader. The copy looks better every time and it won't fade off.

[homerunhitter]

My one and only concern with Signed photos Is, in 20-30 years when my family goes to sell my signed photo collection will there be an issue with them selling a signed psa authenticated photo that I bought on eBay that might not be an official photo (bought that way not knowing if it was officially licensed or not) . Don’t want to put them in An awkward situation if they just want to sell my collection in the future.

[Michael B]

Originally Posted by homerunhitter

My one and only concern with Signed photos Is, in 20-30 years when my family goes to sell my signed photo collection will there be an issue with them selling a signed psa authenticated photo that I bought on eBay that might not be an official photo (bought that way not knowing if it was officially licensed or not) . Don’t want to put them in An awkward situation if they just want to sell my collection in the future.

You are overthinking this a little bit. Once the photo is signed it becomes more than just a non-official photo. It becomes a collectible with hopefully greater intrinsic value than the photo. I doubt there is anyone that would not buy a good photo with a good signature due to the fact that the photo is not officially licensed. With most photos there is the photographers copyright and the MLB licensing of the team logos and color schemes. It is not just one issue. It would be difficult for MLB to prevent someone from selling a single signed photo of a player that is not licensed and not worth the effort. They are more concerned with the entities selling multiple copies of photos of say Mike Trout unsigned without paying the license because Trout is wearing an Angels uniform. This would even apply to the photographer who took the photo. That is one reason why so many print ads and commercials show pro athletes wearing generic uniforms with similar color schemes to their teams uniform, but not exact and usually with an imaginary or no logo. Let's not even get started with Getty Images. They try to assert copyright on photos they have no rights to. The archivist at the US Olympic Committee told me that they sent a demand letter to stop them from using certain photos. The problem was the USOC owns the negatives. That shut up Getty pretty quickly. I would give them a hammer and directions to the beach so they can go pound sand...

[homerunhitter]

Got it! My head was spinning with all those big words! To put it in lamens terms, your saying that in your opinion you think it soul be ok to still collect and sell signed photos that happen to be unlicensed? Thanks

[seanofjapan]

The copyright to a photo belongs to whoever took the photo, who can then assign that right to somebody else through contract. I have no idea who the current holder of the copyright for most old photos is, it could still rest with the photographers themselves in some cases, or have been sold by them to big news services in other cases.

I have a lot of signed photos that I got in the 1990s of players who appeared at shows/shops, etc. Most of the time the photos were provided by dealers at the shows/shops, and they seemed like they had just been spit out of a printer. I doubt they bothered to track down the copyright owner to get permission. Probably a lot of signed photos are like that and their production constituted a copyright infringement.

In most cases its not worth the time/effort of the copyright holders to go around trying to crack down on all these unlicensed photos directly. But if you have one entity (like a photo news service or something) which has been assigned the copyright to a large number of old photos, I wouldn't be surprised if they had a lawyer who decided to use the system Ebay has to demand the removal of infringing material for sale.

I don't actually know that any such powerful copyright holder exists, or if they would make an issue of it (they wouldn't have much financial incentive to do so, but that doesn't mean they won't, lawyers representing copyright holders can be very aggressive sometimes even where it doesn't make much sense for them to be so). It is definitely a possibility I think. Proving that a specific photo is infringing might be difficult though, its not like identifying a bootleg CD where its really obvious.

The worst that would happen though would be that selling those photos on ebay might become a pain/impossible. They could still be sold elsewhere though.

[Michael B]

Originally Posted by homerunhitter

Got it! My head was spinning with all those big words! To put it in lamens terms, your saying that in your opinion you think it soul be ok to still collect and sell signed photos that happen to be unlicensed? Thanks

Yes, I would not get let it keep you up at night. The entities that own the rights are not going to go after someone who has bunch of single signed photos of different people. Sean is also right in that photographers can license their photos to someone like Photofile or Fanatics. It is usually the photographers themselves who get very aggressive with enforcing their rights on images.

I am an advanced photographer who protects the rights on my photography, mostly my concert shots (40 years worth). I also collect photographs of American Olympians. Many of my photos are rights free, meaning they are in the public domain. As a rule copyrights on photos last for 85 years after the photo could have first appeared in a publication. This is a general rule with exceptions. I also own a lot of what are called 'orphan' negatives and slides. You can never prove who may have taken them so rights are debateable. All of that along with doing legal research for 35 years and being married to lawyers twice, including my current wife, I view it a bit differently than most.

[homerunhitter]

Thank you very much for your thoughts on this! After giving it much thought, I decided not to collect signed photos. I took a lot into consideration such as storage space for photos, photos fading over time, copyright, Future sales potential, TPA authentication issues, etc And decided to go a different route With my collecting. I think I will focus more now on factory certified autographs. A big reason for that is at least I know they are authentic autographs. I no longer trust PSA, JSA or Beckett authenticated items. After all TPAs are only an “opinion” service! Thanks