Ownership of old photographs
 

If you haven't seen it, I purchased a photograph from the first game in LSU's Tiger Stadium, 1924.

While I was calling around to see who could repair it for me, one guy said all images before 1925 do not have copyrights and I could reproduce it as much as I want.

This is not just a snapshot It is a huge panoramic image and was taken by a famous, professional photographer named Jasper Ewing.

I know there are a lot of photograph collectors here. Does anyone know if this is true or not?

I don't know the cut off date, but it is true that photos earlier than certain date (80 years old? 100? I'm not certain) lose their copyrights and you can copy them as you wish. You just need to find out how old they need to be. But the guy might have been right, as yours is older than 80 years.

I'm not 100% certain, but believe the cut off is 75 years. I know it was a few years ago, but am not 100% certain it's the same today.

My understanding is a little different. Copyright term has changed over the years based on different acts of Congress:
--The Copyright Act of 1790 established U.S. copyright with term of 14 years with 14-year renewal.
--The Copyright Act of 1831 extended the term to 28 years with 14-year renewal.
--The Copyright Act of 1909 extended term to 28 years with 28-year renewal.
--The Copyright Act of 1976 made the term of a copyright the life of the author plus 50 years, or 75 years for a work of corporate authorship.
--The 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended these terms to life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier. Copyright protection for works published prior to January 1, 1978, was increased by 20 years to a total of 95 years from their publication date, which effectively means that works made in 1923 or afterwards and that were still protected by copyright in 1998 will not enter the public domain until 2019 or afterward (depending on the date of the product) unless the owner of the copyright releases them into the public domain prior to that.

The latest copyright extension did not revive copyrights that had already expired, though, so it is is possible that something created after 1923 entered the public domain. For example, 22 of the Betty Boop cartoons, Reefer Madness, and Plan 9 From Outer Space all have lapsed copyrights and are in the public domain.

So, plugging in your date of 1924 when the work was created, the applicable act was the 1900 law [28 +28]. 1924 + 28 = 1952. If the copyright wasn't renewed, it would have lapsed in 1952. If it was renewed, you would add another 28 for renewal and you get 1980, but that would be extended by the later acts starting with the 1976 act. Basically, if you wanted to print up your own images you'd have to check to see if the author [photographer] or his successor ever renewed his copyright. I don't know how to do that but I am sure that it would involve the copyright office in Washington.

When I searched for Jasper G. Ewing - I found that most of his works reside in both the Special Collections of the LSU Libraries and the Louisiana Historical Photographs of the State Library. Although I did not find a copy of the photo that you displayed yesterday, the copyright information for his photographs state:

Copyrights: Physical rights are retained by the LSU Libraries. Copyright of the original materials is retained by descendants of the creator of the materials in accordance with U.S. copyright law.

and

Rights: Physical rights are retained by the State Library of Louisiana. Copyright is retained in accordance with U. S. copyright laws.

I am not advising you one way or the other - just thought I would share what I found.

Either way it is a Fabulous Piece of History

On the copyright offices site theres a search function. I can't find anything at all under Jasper Ewing, and the oldest dated copyright found by searching for "LSU football" is 1950. so there probably wasn't a renewal.

You'd have to do a bit more searching to be 100% sure, but so far it looks like you're ok as far as reproducing it goes.
http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwe...cal&PAGE=First

Older stuff can be researched in person, or they'll do it for you for $165/hour.
If you ever get to DC it might be worth a trip through the catalog to get the whole copyright history.

Steve B

Adam's the lawyer, so I defer.