I return to this subject for the general List because the rest
of us haven't got very far, and I'm appealing now by this mail
to colleagues who work for the big newspaper groups, or know someone who
does. I'm also appealing, by popular request, to Tim again to see if he has
any fresh ideas. I now have a cohort of colleagues who feel as I do
about getting a definitive answer, once and for all. The off-list
replies proved how little we know about it but would like to - and that it
obviously does occasionally happen that a newspaper can wake up and notice,
and act.
In my original question I said -
I have a quantity of cuttings from the 1920s to 1950s and
would like to reproduce the text in typescript (not scanned) on an
archives website that I run. They come from a very wide spread of
national and area newspapers. Although there are photographs in some, I
know that these would be usually too poor quality for me to use, so I'm only
asking here about the text, and specifically about presenting it in typescript
on a website. What are the rules for this? I've always
assumed that there were specific rules for newspapers, and I've so far
simply contacted a few of the papers' offices and asked if they had
objections. Some said 'go ahead', some said 'just credit us' and some
said they'd have to ask someone and ring me back, which of course they never
did.
In response I had a great many replies off-list from
colleagues with similar problems wanting to know the answer when I found
it, and from Tim who suggested the Newspaper Licensing Agency. My next mail
was to the colleagues who'd asked to know, and described the story so
far.
The Newspaper Licensing Agency seems only interested
in current copyright issues (which could easily encompass the dates I'm
talking about, but that didn't seem to worry them), but they were helpful in
sending me to the Newspaper Publishers Association. After much conferring
the latter's only advice was to (1) copy them anyway or, at my own
suggestion, (2) ring some of the big newspaper groups and see what they
think. (My own collection has cuttings from very many provincial newspapers of
the 1920s and 1930s and I can see that one might spend hours trying to find
out who owns what now.) I had already rung a few newspapers in the past and
received varying answers like "just credit us" or "just go ahead", but you
will all know the feeling of needing to find out basic rules, and thus
not making a mistake and ending up in a bit of bother.
The people I spoke to agreed that copyright
ought to attach to the authors of the articles, and also agreed that it would
be impossible to find them all, especially when unsigned! Also, if the cutting
was posted on the internet, especially when typed, the source could easily be
identified if any paper was on the lookout for breaches of copyright. In my
case, I would have to give the name of the paper from which the cutting came.
(Scanned copies couldn't be picked up, as far as I know, but I'm happy
for someone to correct me on that.)
Remember that I have spoken only to those people who were
working when I rang, and then conferred around their offices - it's
possible that others in their organisations might have answered differently,
which seems to prove what a muddle the whole thing
is.
One colleague summed it up succinctly - So basically no one cares until such time as someone throws a
strop and sues, which seems to me at the moment to be the
position.
If
Tim or any newspaper archivists can get us further forward with this, we'd all
be grateful.
Isabel