COPYRIGHT-L Archives

Archiver > COPYRIGHT > 2002-11 > 1037674895


From: Pat Asher <>
Subject: Re: [COPYRIGHT] Who Owns Copyright on Very Old Letters / was "Old letters pub...
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 22:01:55 -0500
References: <158.178d7590.2b085b11@aol.com><00a301c28de4$6cc98040$1ec3a2d8@oemcomputer>
In-Reply-To: <3DD9A077.75FC7CA0@global2000.net>


At 09:22 PM 11/18/2002, you wrote:
>Let me rephrase one of the important considerations. If my mother and
>father had died, and the home was soon to be sold, and I found Civil War
>letters of an ancestor in the attic (which was being cleaned out, and most
>things being thrown away), who owns the letters that I found? The writer
>was a high ranking officer
>in the war and not only described battles, but also many interactions with
>Abraham Lincoln and Ullyses S. Grant. Do I have to share the letters with
>siblings even though the letters would have been discarded had I not saved
>them (nobody was going to read them to see what they were about)? Who
>owns the copyright on
>them?


Cliff,

Myra quoted it, and I think you did too:

"Copyright is the right of the author of the work or the author's heirs or
assignees, not of the one who only owns or possesses the physical work itself."

Methinks that says you must prove legal transfer from the author through
probate or contract through each subsequent owner/generation to
yourself. If your parents were the legal assignees, and you were your
parents sole heir, then they would belong to you and you could copyright
them. If you and your brother(s) and sister(s) were all heirs of your
parents, then each brother and/or sister would be a part owner of the
personal property (the letters). The fact that you were the one who
"found" them is irrelevant to the laws of inheritance.

I hope for the sake of your family relationships that this is a
hypothetical question <g>


Pat

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