Duration of copyright in photographs

Published material

To find out whether a photograph is still protected by copyright, you can generally make the following conclusions:

• NO, if it was taken by a known photographer who died before 1 January 70 years ago, or taken by an unknown photographer and published before 1 January 70 years ago
  YES, in all other cases (ignoring Crown copyright and international organisations)

The general rules for published material are as follows:

• Copyright expires 70 years after a known photographer's death
• or 70 years after the publication of the work of an unknown photographer

However there are a number of exceptions to this, due to copyright legislation in place before 1989:

• Known photographer; photograph was taken before 1 June 1957; copyright expires 70 years after the death of the author
• Known photographer; photograph was taken on or after 1 June 1957 and before 1 August 1989; photographer died more than 20 years before publication; copyright expires 50 years after the end of the year of first publication
• Known photographer; photograph was taken on or after 1 June 1957 and before 1 August 1989; photographer died less than 20 years before publication; copyright expires 70 years after the end of the year of the author's death
• Crown copyright applies; protection is for a maximum of 125 calendar years unless published commercially, in which case a photograph is protected for only 50 years from the end of the year in which it was created

Unpublished material

The rules for unpublished material are more complicated, and are as follows:

• Copyright expires 70 years after the creation of any unpublished photograph taken before 1 June 1957
• Copyright expires on 31 December 2039 for any unpublished photograph taken on or after 1 June 1957 and before 1 January 1969, if the author died before 1 January 1969
• Copyright expires on 31 December 2039 for any unpublished photograph taken on or after 1 January 1969
• Copyright expires 70 years after the creation of any unpublished photograph taken after 1 January 1969

Therefore all unpublished photographs taken since 1 June 1957 are currently protected by copyright.