Lake Buena Vista Historical Society Media Use and Watermark Policy

The Lake Buena Vista Historical Society (LBVHistory) routinely receives requests to utilize or license digital images, restored motion pictures, and video footage from our archives for various purposes. These requests are reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

As a not-for-profit organization that restores and permanently preserves media for the benefit of the public at large we normally approve these requests. Because this media has been acquired and restored by a not-for-profit organization we assert our rights by placing a watermark for “Lake Buena Vista Historical Society” or, in the case of older items, “RetroWDW”.

These watermarks are placed to prevent the unauthorized use of these images for monetization purposes by those making videos, publications, paywall websites, social media channels, “influencer” building, merchandise, or other similar uses where the unauthorized use earns income for the seller.

On rare occasions, for a specific purpose, we will receive requests to provide restored images, motion pictures, or video footage without the watermark. We consider each of these requests and approve them for projects deemed historically significant or where the presence of the watermark would detract in some way from the integrity of the presentation.

Without exception, we require attribution in all cases.

Our archive contains primarily images and moving pictures that we have personally owned and restored through purchase, personal ownership, or donation from owners. A small portion of our still and moving images are images uploaded by supporters or “found” in the earlier years of the internet that we do not own. They are maintained here for research and educational purposes and when we receive a request from a copyright holder to remove them we do so. We never approve requests to license or use still or moving images that we do not “own” as established in the preceding paragraph. Our watermark does appear on these items to identify freely that we are hosting these items on our site and not to assert ownership.

We occasionally receive permission to host and share collections owned by others not affiliated with LBVHistory. In those cases, we clearly identify these items are not owned by us by adding a watermark crediting the owner/source.

If you wish to license or use a moving or still image please submit your request via email to info@lbvhistory.org and be as specific as possible, including links to the image(s) or video file(s), specific time-codes for the clips must be included. Requests for video or film images free of watermarks may not exceed 30 seconds. Full copies of films/videos are not permitted.