WAL-Mart Won’t Sell Granny Pics
O.K. I don’t have any pictures of my great-grandmother. I don’t really have that many pictures of family at all and I’ve been trying to get at least one photo of each family member over the last six or seven months. I haven’t decided where to hang or put all of the family pictures in my new house yet, but it’s important to me to have this anchor for memories.
Anyway, my mother found a really nice one of my great-grandmother taken 15 years ago or so. It looks like she had it done at a Sears or something. You know, it looks like a school picture or maybe it was one the church did. Anyway, it looks professionally done, but it doesn’t say anywhere who did it and we don’t have negatives.
So, we took the picture over to WAL-Mart to the magic copying machine and made two copies.
The staff at WAL-Mart refused to sell us the copies and confiscated them. We were told that WAL-Mart’s policy is not to duplicate copyrighted materials but that if we come back with a release form, we could make all the copies we want. They were not sympathetic or understanding that my great-grandmother has been dead for years and that picture is 15 years old and that no one knows where it was taken.
I bet if it had been in black and white and looked about 30 years older, they wouldn’t have said anything.
Anyway, my dad and I suggested to my mother that she make up a name of a photography studio and send an email to herself telling her that it’s O.K. to reprint the picture.
Really, I understand WAL-Mart’s policy. After all, anyone could come in and reproduce their school pictures, etc. However, I figure that once you’ve paid for those pictures, they’re yours to do with as you want. No one should own your image or your great grandmother’s image and who’s to say that I‘m not a professional photographer. Do I need to bring a release form to print all of my digital photography in WAL-Mart?
tags: WAL-Mart, photo duplicates
You may also enjoy...
3 comments
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
on February 12, 2007 at 11:25 am
b. said:
actually i went to walmart the other day to make a copy of a picture of my great grandmother who was 16. The picture was taken in 1916. that’s almost a hundred years old! well, someone had given that copy to my grandmother and she didn’t know where the original was. anyway, the dumb lady at walmart said i had to have the original to make the copy. Now tell me, where in the heck am i going to find the original when my own grandma don’t know where it is??
on July 12, 2007 at 9:13 am
J said:
This is not just walmart policy. This is also the copy right law. This lae is in place to protect the photographer. This law also protects walmart from leagal action. If you can’t understand that you are the one who is an idiot.
on July 12, 2007 at 9:25 am
J said:
Copyright applies to most artistic works, such as paintings, murals, statues, TV shows, music, and for us, photography. As a photographer, it gives you the exclusive right to make and sell copies of the photo; to create derivative works (other art based on the photo, such as a painting of the photo); to display the photo in public; and to license usage for money to other people. In a sense, copyright doesn’t give you anything, it really just affects other people, saying what they can’t do, thus it’s known as a “negative right”.
Copyright Is Automatic?
Yes, thanks to the Berne Convention. At the moment of creation, when the artwork is “fixed” in some tangible form, copyright applies automatically. For a photographer, when you press the shutter release you are making a photo and gaining copyright to that photo at the same time. You don’t have to declare copyright or file any paperwork. It is yours to keep until you explicitly give it away or you die (copyright expires after you, the duration in the U.S. is the author’s lifetime plus 70 years).
That said, there is an advantage to filing for copyright. If a dispute arises, you can get punitive damages (in addition to compensatory damages) if a form was filed before infringement.