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
