A question about copyright and photographs, help please!

[MinaHarker1897]

Hello, I am putting a book together at the minute and I want to use some photographs to illustrate. These photographs were all taken in the Victorian era and have been widely on sale in the past at a gallery, but have now been acquired by a local museum so the museum now owns the whole collection, merchandise and publishing rights. They will be selling postcards, prints, coasters, greeting cards, everything you can imagine in the museum shop.

I own several prints of some of these pictures already that I purchased from the gallery as physical copies and scanned copies I made myself, but one I specifically wanted to use is one I don't have. I contacted the museum who have advised me it is free to reproduce (with their permission) in a research publication, £30 in a larger print run and £90 for a commercial publication if the image takes up less than half a page.

My question is what about the images I already own? I bought them already from the gallery. There is no impact on the market for the originals, as they can't be copied from my book, but can be bought from the museum shop if anyone is interested. Do I need to pay for all of those images, too?

I would fully acknowledge the rights holder as my credits would reiterate the copyright statement /licence terms indicated.

Thanks.

The fact you own a copy of the picture doesn't mean anything though. You would have to speak to the museum about the pictures you want to use and explain what kind of book your writing and ask them for the full cost. Please do bear in mind that if you are self publishing it will be incredibly difficult to earn that money back.

That you own prints is irrelevant — you don’t own the rights. You need to pay for all images on the terms indicated.

As everyone has said you need to own the rights to a picture. This is why when I illustrate a book I use my own photos and my own paintings/drawings. If you are indie publishing you will not earn back the cost of using photos the rights to which you do not own.
You can find sites on the web which offer free to use illustrations, and also sites where you pay and be able to use a set number of images a year.