Copyright Query

[Deejayuu]

I have just purchased from eBay 2 photograph albums dating back to the first world war which have been scanned and put on to a disk. There has been nothing added to the content by the seller, no cover, no contents, no credits page there are just single scans of each page. The CD cover is marked COPYRIGHTS and i am wondering why? Someone has obviously purchased the albums and gone to effort of spending hours scanning the images which i commend as the scanned images can be seen by a much wider audience. My question is can the images have a copyright due to a/ the age of the original images, b/there has been no additional material being added and c/the seller has probably already copied the images from a purchased album that may not have been copyrighted in the first place? There are some very interesting and unusual shots of the West Yorks Regt as well as officers wearing the silver maltese cross (no wreath) of the Leeds Rifles which i would like to share but would appreciate a view on the copyright status before i post them and get into trouble.

Cheers, Dave