Wildr, I began my "mining" of the collection at the Air Force Museum back in 70's, and have continued to do so periodically up to and including this year. When you were there did you happen to work with Dave Menard? Tough on the outside but a peach to work with when he decided you were a serious "airplane person". If you indeed saved a lot of photos from the trash heap then may the Great Spirit be with you! It almost brings me to tears when contacting companies about their archives and find they put them in trash decades ago.
Falke, a copyright infringement can occur by posting copyrighted materials without the author/publisher's permission or the appropriate disclaimer that you are posting if for informational purposes and (hopefully) the legal code reference that permits that. The RAF, for instance, has copyrighted all their photos and can apparently be quite unpleasant to deal with if you violate that. As for Boeing for example, they have decided to make their legal department a profit center and try to squeeze blood out of anyone wanting use anything in their collection - despite that fact that many of the photos are from companies they have purchased over the years and that a huge number of the photos were paid for within the contracts Boeing and these companies signed with the U.S. Government and were paid for by U.S. taxpayer - as well as the blood, sweat and tears of the crews that flew - and often died in - the aircraft they built. In my opinion it is capitalism at its very worst.
On another point, if someone posts photos that might be accessible at the USAF Museum, the National Archives or other places where the items would be in the Public Domain and doesn't indicate that source, I think they are rather robbing interested parties and researchers of the opportunity to learn the location and go and research themselves.
I realize that I'm something of a stickler on this subject, but I was trained as an historian and that is also why I'm known for the thoroughness and quality of my research.
Respectfully submitted,
AlanG