Copyright and Take-down Policies
The Copyright and Take-down policies were approved by the Board of Trustees of the RCTS on 18th March 2023. They are subject to future amendment.
Jump to: Take-down policy
Copyright policy
The Photo Archive based at Leatherhead contains a mixture of items where the copyright:
- Has been transferred to, and is now owned by, the RCTS (“the Society”) though in some cases the assignment records are unclear
- Is not owned by the Society, and the copyright-holder can be identified
- Is (probably) not owned by the Society, but the copyright-holder cannot be identified (“orphaned”).
Digitisation of the Photo Archive gives rise to a requirement for a properly approved Copyright Policy. The policy is subject to amendment in response to further guidance, new case law, experience, etc
Only items owned by the Society can be commercialised. However, this policy covers additional forms of access:
- Volunteers assisting with cataloguing the archive, acting as “assistant archivists”. They will work remotely and require access to digital copies of the originals
- Members of the public being granted access to the archive in accordance with the Society’s educational objectives. Bone fide researchers should be able to search the catalogue and, if the copyright is held elsewhere, be pointed towards the copyright holder
- Items where the copyright is orphaned should be made available for viewing but not commercialised. A take-down policy sits alongside, which is applied if a copyright holder were to come forward
- Items where the copyright is orphaned can be commercialised on an individual basis under the orphaned works licencing scheme.
The aims of the policy are to:
- Ensure that the entire archive can be catalogued
- Demonstrate a genuine desire to respect the intellectual property rights of photographers and commercial publishers
- Facilitate remote public access on an equivalent basis to a visitor to Leatherhead.
Cataloguing and evaluation processes
The cataloguing processes will be operated online. Information (subject matter, location, date, photographer, publisher, camera settings) is often available on the back of prints and in photographers’ notebooks. These will be digitised and presented alongside the actual image for archivists to transcribe.
Evaluation of the image may be performed at the same time, or separately by specialists. Criteria are: technical quality, subject interest, rarity, copyright risk. The evaluation will inform pricing decisions on commercial sales.
A closed platform will be provided for this work. Volunteers will sign up as Assistant Archivists and will be required to sign in to work. Images will be displayed in full detail but the archivist will not control which images, nor be able to make copies.
Public access
There will be two levels of public access:
- A sales platform offering only those images where the Society holds the rights
- A research platform providing access to all catalogued images, including orphaned and non-Society assets. Thus, uncatalogued images are not publicly available.
The sales platform is fully open to all-comers. Images will be viewable online before purchase but at limited resolution and clearly watermarked. Variables affecting pricing include:
- Colour vs B&W
- Respected photographer premium
- Quality and rarity weighting
- Resolution (different sizes may be offered)
- Watermarked vs unwatermarked.
Research access will require online registration for a “reader’s card”, a step that involves accepting the Society’s T&Cs. Access is for private research, images are view-only, copies cannot be taken, and all images are watermarked. Images owned by others will be watermarked, but with a generic “Copyright protected” label. Details of the copyright holder will be provided in the catalogue information displayed alongside. It is important for the readers’ cards to be free-of-charge.
Take-down and commercialisation
An effort should be made to pro-actively contact photographers and commercial publishers recorded in the catalogue. Most will be dead or closed down but the endeavour is important, and is easier to do after the catalogue has been created i.e. the list of items in question can be shared.
| Rights owner | Policy | Access |
|---|---|---|
| RCTS owns rights | Display and sell | Public |
| Orphaned copyright | ||
| · Licenced | Display and sell | Public |
| · Unlicenced | Display with take-down policy | Reader's Card |
| Rights holder reached | ||
| · No response | Display with take-down policy | Reader's Card |
| · OK to display | Display with credit, and contact details | Reader's Card |
| · OK to display and commercialise | Display and sell, with credit. Possible revenue sharing arrangement | Public |
| · Not OK to display | Retained in catalogue, display only thumbnail and contact details. The Society is within its rights to retain the item in its catalogue, and for the catalogue entry to be visible to bone fide researchers | Reader's Card |
| Rights holder not reached | Display with take-down policy | Reader's Card |
Take-down policy
The RCTS is committed to making digitised content available online. Although every effort has been made to identify and contact rights holders, we recognise that sometimes material published online may be in breach of copyright laws, contain sensitive personal data, or include content that may be regarded as obscene or defamatory.
If you are a rights holder and are concerned that you have found material on the RCTS Digital Archive for which you have not given permission, or that is not covered by a limitation or exception in national law, please contact us in writing stating the following:
- Your contact details
- The full bibliographic details or citation of the material, sufficient to identify it without ambiguity
- The full URL where you found the material
- Proof that you are the rights holder and a statement that you are the rights holder or are an authorised representative.
Chief Archivist
c/o 34 Victory Park Road
Addlestone
KT15 2AZ
Email: archive@rcts.org.uk
Notice and Takedown procedure
Upon receipt of notification, the ‘Notice and Takedown’ procedure is then invoked as follows:
- We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint by email or letter and will make an initial assessment of the validity of the complaint within twenty working days
- Upon receipt of a valid complaint access to the material in the archive will be temporarily downgraded to a catalogue-only entry pending an agreed solution
- The complainant and the contributor will be encouraged to resolve the issue swiftly and amicably and to the satisfaction of both parties, with the following possible outcomes:
- The material is left unchanged, or
- The material is replaced with changes, or
- The material is permanently downgraded.
- If the contributor and the complainant are unable to agree a solution, the material will remain downgraded in our repository until a time when a resolution has been reached.