On May 6, 2006, at 7:24 AM, Guettarda wrote: My understanding is that if you're the heir, you inherit all property, including intellectual property, and can do with it as you see fit. -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

Guettarda wrote: I'm assuming that you are talking about US law. In some other places photographs have a shorter copyright life than texts. In the US now these photographs should follow the manuscript and fall into the public domain 70 years after the photographer's death unless they have previously been published. If you have the survivor rights you can license them in any way that you want. You can probably also do it alone if the rights are shared. Fortunately for me, my paternal grandfather (who died in 1948) left nothing copyrightable; he had 16 children (now all dead) and 48 grandchildren, many of whom are now dead; one of his daughters was a nun who would have taken a vow of poverty and made the church her heirs. To the best of my knowledge, he did not have a will. Many of his deceased offspring did not have wills, and lived in different jurisdictions. There are times when the decision that one makes must be guided by practicality rather than an overstrict adherence to the letter of the law. It is rare for persons who are not published to think of copyrights. Most wills, however, do have a residual clause for anything that is not otherwise specified, and copyrights would be transferred along with other things. If the will is defective in that way the law of intestate succession where he lived would apply. More problematic would be a box of family snapshots where you cannot determine who took which picture. Ec