Copyright and Pocket Money Genealogy

Protection of copyright is an important part of our society and copyright laws exist to protect those rights. Pocket Money Genealogy adheres to the copyright laws of Australia.

What This Means For You

Any images or video you wish digitised must be owned by you. This is quite simple if you are the photographer or have inherited images from your family.

It becomes a challenge if you have commercially produced images, commonly occuring with slides purchased while on holidays through the middle of the 20th century. These can usually be identified by a copyright mark and statement on the slide frame - often Kodak. Pocket Money Genealogy will not digitise these images without complete assurance no copyright laws are being broken.

Another challenge with commercial images comes from wedding photos, as a common practise is for a photographer to hold the copyright. There are special rules covering wedding photography services under the copyright act and the Australian Copyright Council has a series of fact sheets that will help you understand who owns copyright on your wedding photos. The specific sheet can be found at Photographs: Copying Photos You've Paid For (G035). Another useful fact sheet is Photographers (G011). One very important key point is that copyright has now expired on photographs taken before 1 January 1955.

Family Histories and Copyright

The Australian Copyright Council has a specific fact sheet dealing with copyright and family history, found at Family Histories (G042). This is well worth a read for all genealogists and family historians.

What This Means for Pocket Money Genealogy

The digitisation services offered by Pocket Money Genealogy are defined as a copying service and we need to follow the rules as specified in the Australia Copyright Council fact sheet Copying Services (G014). For this reason we include a permission to copy requirement and disclaimer for all our digitisation services, based upon How to Get Permission (G051).