Complaint Review: Wal-Mart

I had a few photos that are around 30 years old that I was trying to make copies of because I am making a scrapbook for my husband. I made the copies and went to pay for them and was told that they were "to professional looking" so they "had" to be copyright protected. I clearly stated to the woman that they were not copyright protected because the person that took these photos was a friend of the family and didn't own a business taking photos. I also stated that the person was dead so there was no way I could get a release - even though I didn't need one because they were not copyright protected.

This woman didn't even look at the photos. All she saw was that I was making copies of photos that are originally 8X10's, so she immediately assumed that if they are 8X10's, they had to be professionally done. Not the case.

I filed a complaint on the Wal-Mart website the evening that this happened (3/9/07). Last night I received a call from somebody at the Wal-Mart store and he stated that he looked at the video and he also agreed from what he saw in the video, that the photos were "to professionally done" and he was sticking up for the employee.

I stated to him that it was funny because I took the pictures to another Wal-Mart across town and the lady there closely looked at the photos and stated it was fine to copy them because they were not copyright protected.

How is a person supposed to be able to preserve history of photos if every photo looks "to professionally done", so you can't make copies to have and share with family members?

Also, I was telling this story to a co-worker, and she asked what this woman looked like. I described her and my co-worker stated that both her and her husband have had problems with this person when they have gone to the Wal-Mart photo center being rude and ignoring them when they were trying to get help.

Lacinda
Marion, Iowa
U.S.A.