copyright of ship photographs

[Terrysummerson]

as someone who uses old photographs to produce paintings can someone tell me if i can use photographs from shipyrds that are no longer in business. also can someone tell me if I can us eany of Frank and sons photographs. for instance when was copyright on these still in force

[Dennis Maccoy]

Hi Terry,
I’m certainly no expert on copyright law, but if you are simply using a photograph as inspiration for a painting I can not see a problem – the image you produce is your work and your copyright. If you were reproducing the photograph (not your painting) in a book, or posting it on a website such as this, while the photograph was still within the copyright period, then there might be a problem.
There is some useful guidance at https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... e-internet
Regards,
Dennis