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Hello, my husband and i are about to recieve some letters that are of historical value. We learned of it when a cousin had put it up for sale on a on line auction site. They rightly belonged to my father in law, but he handed them over to his sister to use to write a book, well she never did and then died. Her children hung on to them and just recently this year tried to sell them, they have agreed to give us copies, we dont want to fight them and niether does my father in law he is 87 and not really wanting to fight but to resolve this peacefully so they have promised copies, we should be gettting them soon, but the big question now is i would like to do copyrights on them can i include in a copyright that our family members including the cousins will be the only ones that can use these letters for whatever they wish. I already have people interested in helping me with a project with these letters. I will also need to learn about copyright issues.........
State/Country relating to Question: California Already Tried: NOthing!!!!!!!!!
Yes you can copyright them so long as they are not a literary work of someone famous who would have the rights to them. For example if Hemingway sent your father in law letters authored by him, his estate rightly owns the rights to them.
The person is indeed famous but has no family and considered my father in laws parents as his parents. That is written as well in the letters. Thier were momuments made in his name and some other things but they are not family and he donated what money he had in his will to a college. So i would think no one would own them except my father in law and his children. Right?
I would think in that case with no surviving heirs to complain about any infringement that you be fine in asserting the rights to the works.
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