Permission Ahoy! Cruise Ship Photos Used in Book

Dear Rich: I have spent hours trying to find an answer to a simple 10 second question. I have written a book about cruising and have included a few general photos of cruise ships within the book. I took the photos from public places and you can see the name of the ship in the photo. Do you know if I'm allowed to use these photos or do they constitute a breach of intellectual property laws? Okay, it took us ten seconds just to copy your question into our antiquated blogging program so The Dear Rich Staff suggests that you avoid prefacing requests with an anticipated time limit (whoa ... there goes another 30 seconds). The short and long answer to your question is that you're okay to use the pictures of the ships and their names. Anything that's publicly viewable generally doesn't violate rights of privacy or copyright laws. Photography of passengers taken while on the cruise ship may be subject to privacy laws especially if it is a booze cruise.