Future of signed photos in the hobby?

[Michael B]

Originally Posted by homerunhitter

My one and only concern with Signed photos Is, in 20-30 years when my family goes to sell my signed photo collection will there be an issue with them selling a signed psa authenticated photo that I bought on eBay that might not be an official photo (bought that way not knowing if it was officially licensed or not) . Don’t want to put them in An awkward situation if they just want to sell my collection in the future.

You are overthinking this a little bit. Once the photo is signed it becomes more than just a non-official photo. It becomes a collectible with hopefully greater intrinsic value than the photo. I doubt there is anyone that would not buy a good photo with a good signature due to the fact that the photo is not officially licensed. With most photos there is the photographers copyright and the MLB licensing of the team logos and color schemes. It is not just one issue. It would be difficult for MLB to prevent someone from selling a single signed photo of a player that is not licensed and not worth the effort. They are more concerned with the entities selling multiple copies of photos of say Mike Trout unsigned without paying the license because Trout is wearing an Angels uniform. This would even apply to the photographer who took the photo. That is one reason why so many print ads and commercials show pro athletes wearing generic uniforms with similar color schemes to their teams uniform, but not exact and usually with an imaginary or no logo. Let's not even get started with Getty Images. They try to assert copyright on photos they have no rights to. The archivist at the US Olympic Committee told me that they sent a demand letter to stop them from using certain photos. The problem was the USOC owns the negatives. That shut up Getty pretty quickly. I would give them a hammer and directions to the beach so they can go pound sand...