Wal-Mart: you can't scan century-old photos of your ancestors because copyright lasts forever →

This is really insane — someone goes to Walmart to scan and reprint an old family photo and is stopped by an employee who says that the picture can’t be reprinted because it’s copyrighted.

In disbelief, I point out that the photo is almost 100 years old and the people are all dead. Undeterred, the Wal-Mart employee informs me that “Copyright lasts forever. It’s the law.” My scans up to that point are deleted and I’m free to leave the store with my old photos unscanned. I guess I should be thankful they didn’t have a portable shredder on hand to seize my photos and do away with them right then and there.

Just do what Ashley and I did after our problems with Walmart: go to Target. The prints are better and they don’t ask you a single question about copyright.

Walmart won’t print my photos

Walmart has a policy of not reprinting photos that “look professional.” So even though our wedding photographer has given Ashley and I all the negatives and told us that we can do whatever we want with them, Walmart doesn’t believe us and wants a signed release before they’ll do anything. Oh, and they kept the CD full of images that we gave them.

Who appointed them the copyright police? If I had a DSLR camera and turned in some photos that “looked professional,” would I have to prove to them that I took the pictures before they’d print them for me?

I don’t know, maybe this is good for photographers or something. All I know is that it’s making me very angry right now.

Update: I should have said, “I know this is good for photographers.” I certainly don’t want to make it any easier for someone to go around ripping off other people’s work.