Copy Right and vintage images Question! HELP?

Question

I would like to make some vintage magnits and some fun stuff like that but am having a problem. There are many people on ebay claming they have a cds with lots of vintage images from greeting cards and so on and they have the copyright of it.

What exactly does that mean? There are other sites that I have found with the same images that claim its a "public domain" image and can be used however.

First...how can I get and make a cd of images from old greeting cards and make it so I can sell...?

Where is a place that has fun craft ideas to use with vintage images?

thanks

Answer 1

Images that were published before 1923 are now automatically in the public domain in most all cases, so those can be used then sold.  

Some people may have drawn or painted those vintage-looking images though and do have a current copyright (or just claim to have one to discourage others from using then selling them).

And other people may just claim to have copyrighted images on a DVD, etc., when they don't, or when they're claiming them as part of the DVD which they've created (instructions and specific pieces can be copyrighted).

Some places and books will sell images which can be freely used (either because they own them or they're in the public domain), but some may specify that only a certain number of items can be sold with those images (generally things that aren't *sold* aren't too much of a problem)--but those could be problems if you actually want to make a CD to sell since presumably you'd want to sell it to lots of people.

(This sort of thing is true with rubber stamps too ...the companies which offer ones you can use or have limited-sale use, are often called "angel" companies.)

Check out some of these sites re copy rights for more info:

http://www.google.com/search?q=copyright...

Diane B.