Kathy, You wrote: > Do we need to find the original > owners of the studio or their descendants to ask permission to use these? >>I have acquired over 20 glass negatives that were exposed at Bodie's Art >> Studio (portrait photography) in Hammond. They were shot in the 1930s. If you >> are interested in making the scanned copies available to people, let me >> know. I'm not *certain* about copyright issues. This will need to be >> examined.<< I'm not certain what the copyright status would be on these. As a general rule of thumb, simple possession of a photo or even of the negative does not necessarily infer copyright ownership. Nowadays, most professional photographers who sell their negatives also include a letter permitting use of the negatives by the owner (in other words, relinquishing copyright ownership of the images). In the 1930's, I would doubt that this was done. It might simply be possible for you to have the owner of these images sign a waiver for you stating that he/she does in fact own the copyright and/or has permission to use them and is allowing you to use them as well. One other thought: if these were taken in the 1930's, it is quite conceivable that some of the subjects of these portraits might still be alive. I don't know how that might affect your use of the images. A couple phone numbers that might be of some help to you: US Copyright Office (202) 707-3000 Copyright Clearance Center (978) 750-8400 Professional Photographers of America (800) 786-6277 Jill Arthur Barry ******************* Researching surnames in: INDIANA - Arthur, McGahey, Murnan, Long, Niles, Scott, McConahay, Pritchard, Sutton MICHIGAN - Boboltz, Mitchell, Doezema, Engberts, Matschulat, Olechnowicz, Weber, Kamiske WISCONSIN - Barry, Oravez, Hadrian, Skwierawski, and the list goes on...