1927 Yankees Team Photo Negative

[Michael B]

The rule of thumb that I have used and appears to be supported by copyright law is that a photo, if copyrighted when originally taken or not, falls into the public domain 85 years after it could have first been published in a newspaper, magazine or book. This is a good rule of thumb for press photos. If a copyright is renewed, then it is extended. The extension of a copyright is usually done for iconic photos or those taken by famous photographers, ie. Ansel Adams, Margaret Burke White, Eisenstadt. Images of Adam's photos taken in the 1920's are still covered by copyright.

The use of images of famous persons can be controlled by the estate, but only under certain circumstances. The State of California has statutes in place that prevent people from profiting off of the names and/or images of famous people who were legal residences of the state. Even this has its exceptions. A person found some unpublished negatives of Marilyn Monroe in California and was trying to make prints to sell. Her estate stepped in and tried to prevent the sale since she was living in California at the time of her death. The estate lost the case. Even though she was living in California, she also maintained a residence in New York and paid taxes to the State of New York, making her a legal resident of that state.

Sorry to get off track. It is highly unlikely that anyone is going to come knocking on your door if you make up some prints and try to sell them. BUT, and I am talking elephant butt, Major League Baseball maintains all marketing rights over the logos of every team in baseball. Since the Yankees logo and the word Yankees on a jersey are their logo, you could not really go into large scale marketing without a license from MLB. Think of all the advertising in magazines and other advertising where you see a player wearing a lookalike team uniform without any logos, especially the hats.

Two last points:
1) If you are purchasing an image directly from the photographer and he is giving you all reproduction rights - GET IT IN WRITING!!!. The verbal statement has little control, especially if the family steps up after the photographers death.

2) Not every organization claiming copyright on an image actually has one. Getty Images claims copyright on images they could not possibly have. Not true for all images, but for some older images this is the case. They are trying to control the dissemination of photos in the public domain.