Copyright law requires that you make a good-faith effort to find the copyright owners. If you document such effort and they sue you, this can weigh heavily in your favor. There are two obvious caveats: a) You can still get sued, not to mention annoying cease-and-desist letters; and 2) They could still win.
Being that we are, for the most part, not art critics, you could consider creating original art. You might get mocked, particularly after a few beers, but that's just the way we roll. Of course, if you buy beer, that will reduce any mock risk. Cary On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 12:34 PM, Doran, Michael D <do...@uta.edu> wrote: > I was hoping to re-use/re-purpose a couple of 1962 Seattle World's Fair > images found on the interwebs [1][2]. Both images were originally created > for souvenir decals. > > According to the U.S. Copyright Office's "Copyrights Basics" [3] section on > works originally created and published or registered before January 1, 1978, > "copyright endured for a first term of 28 years from the date it was secured" > -- i.e. for these images, from 1962 to 1990. It goes on to say that "During > the last (28th) year of the first term, the copyright was eligible for > renewal." This however, was *not* an automatic renewal. > > So, unless the copyright was explicitly renewed in 1990, the images are in > the public domain. Since these images were for souvenir decals (rather than > something like a poster), I'm inclined to think the original copyright owner > probably didn't renew the copyright. However, I don't know who the original > copyright owner is and really have no way of finding out, and therefore I > can't ascertain whether or not the copyright was renewed. > > For those with more experience in copyright, any thoughts regarding > situations like this? > > I realize this isn't a coding question, but figured I might get some helpful > responses from those of y'all working in archives and various digital > projects where copyright issues regularly come up. > > ps I've eliminated the "Century 21 Exposition" logo in my proposed reuse, if > that matters (on one image, there is a registered trademark symbol next to > the logo). I'm also not retaining the original "Seattle World's Fair" text. > > -- Michael > > [1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/hollywoodplace/6007390480/ > > [2] > http://media.photobucket.com/image/seattle%20world%2527s%20fair%20monorail/bananaphone5000/NEWGORILLA/SeattleWFDecal.jpg > > [3] http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdf > > # Michael Doran, Systems Librarian > # University of Texas at Arlington > # 817-272-5326 office > # 817-688-1926 mobile > # do...@uta.edu > # http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/ -- Cary Gordon The Cherry Hill Company http://chillco.com
