Can I Sell/Reprint Pictures in The Public Domain?

Question

I was wondering if I could sell/reprint pictures that are in the public domain. I've noticed some other people who have 100's of thousands of photos and are selling them as well. I figure they must be in public domain as there is no way they own the copyright to all these photographs.

Is it legal to do this?

Also, how can you be positively sure a photo is in the public domain?

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

It's a risky business ... there is no real way to guarantee the image IS in the public domain ... different countries have different copyright term duration, the person who posted it and said it was public domain might not have been the copyright holder ... you use an image that isn't actually in the public domain and you can find yourself facing penalties of 150,000$ in the US, it varies form country to country ... Canada, for example is 25,000$) PER IMAGE!



It's not a safe business model.

Answer 2

Public domain means either the copyright expired or there never was any copyright. Copyright generally expires according to when, where, how and sometimes who published it.



The work would not have had any original copyright if either it is a work of the US government or it was published in the USA prior to 1989 without proper copyright notice (or registration), or prior to 1964 without proper "renewal", as well as proper copyright notice upon publication.



Assume everything else is copyrighted. There are some complicated exceptions, such as foreign works published prior to 1989 without copyright notice or renewal, but for which their home-country copyright had not expired as of 1996, at which point they were granted "restored" copyright in the USA, even if they never previously had any US copyright.

Answer 3

Of course it is legal - they are in the public domain.

How can you be positively sure a photo is in the public domain? By having a specific source for publication which is far enough back in history.