Don’t try to take a studio portrait to Wal-Mart and scan it to make some prints. According to Wal-Mart "Copyright lasts forever. It’s the law." This is what one customer was told when trying to make prints of an 80 year old photo of her dead grandmother.
Michael Sauers is the Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
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One Reply to “Yep, Wal-Mart doesn’t understand copyright at all”
It’s just store policy to not allow any prints to be made from something that appears to be professional (yes, I know this is very very subjective). In any case, there is information on the scanner lid explaining this and a notice on the screen before you begin that explains this a little better.
Don’t try to take a studio portrait to Wal-Mart and scan it to make some prints. According to Wal-Mart "Copyright lasts forever. It’s the law." This is what one customer was told when trying to make prints of an 80 year old photo of her dead grandmother.
It’s just store policy to not allow any prints to be made from something that appears to be professional (yes, I know this is very very subjective). In any case, there is information on the scanner lid explaining this and a notice on the screen before you begin that explains this a little better.