Please Read: The legality of photo restoration

There are many labs and photographers offering restoration services, I would guess that they take them on a case by case basis. Back in my lab days we had people bring in everything from old beat up polaroids to portraits done by some of the pros we did work for. We refused to do restoration on pictures from professionals and suggested that they get a reprint from the original photographer.

breal101 wrote in post #6346393
There are many labs and photographers offering restoration services, I would guess that they take them on a case by case basis. Back in my lab days we had people bring in everything from old beat up polaroids to portraits done by some of the pros we did work for. We refused to do restoration on pictures from professionals and suggested that they get a reprint from the original photographer.

That used to be the standard answer for lots of labs that had something akin to ethics. But many studios today have digital only systems and only keep files for so long prior to dumping them. So then what?

I know that many photographers will keep negs until the photographer retires or the business is sold. But all too often clients get told years later that the negs from their event were kept for xxxx years and then tossed out.

I think that if a restorer does some due diligence and tries to locate a photographer and tracks or notes that attemp they should be OK. Realistically though, I really do not think that this is a huge issue unless the image is fairly young. Also how many photographers would get all bent out of shape for one reprint sale? I am not arguing the rights of the photographer, just the common sense aspect of original photographer. But if you can locate the photographer, get a reprint then by all means do so...

LBaldwin wrote in post #6345707
I guess the most common form of this issue would be Olan Mills family portraits. They often need repairs due to the poor paper many were printed on. It can be repaired by a second party without permission from Olan Mills, for the above reason. BUT the best thing to do would be to write them and get permssion to do the dupes needed in the repair.

In recent years Olan Mills charged $10. for permission. Since repair work cannot be done successfully directly on the original photo itself, a digital reproduction is created & the repair done there. Many studios look at a repaired reproduction as a copy, therefore, this is where the (c) issue comes into play.

LBaldwin wrote in post #6346825
I think that if a restorer does some due diligence and tries to locate a photographer and tracks or notes that attemp they should be OK. Realistically though, I really do not think that this is a huge issue unless the image is fairly young. Also how many photographers would get all bent out of shape for one reprint sale? I am not arguing the rights of the photographer, just the common sense aspect of original photographer. But if you can locate the photographer, get a reprint then by all means do so...

I agree completely, and very good advise too.

If it is old, there may be no issues at all. Copyrights don't last forever.

If it isn't old, there is also probably no issue. The owner of the painting has a license to the work. There may be circumstances where an original artist can object to the alteration of a copyrighted work, but you aren't altering it. You are preserving it.

A restoration is different from a reprint. I would be very surprised to find case law supporting restoration as an infringement. I can't see why that would be infringement.