Summary

Licensing

The photo was published in The Philadelphia Inquirer on February 23, 1980 (see [2]) without a copyright notice for the photo itself, but with a copyright notice for the newspaper as a whole. There is no copyright registration for the column in which the photo appears nor for the newspaper as a whole.

The photo was published in Philadelphia magazine in January 1981 (see [3]). The copyright for the magazine itself is registered with the U.S. Copyright Office under registration number TX0000718474 on February 17, 1981.

The photo was then published on December 10, 1981 in the Corpus Christi Caller (see [4]) without a copyright notice for the photo itself nor for the newspaper as a whole. There is no copyright registration for the column in which the photo appears nor for the newspaper as a whole.

The photo was also published in the Alexandria Daily Town Talk on December 10, 1981 (see [5] and [6], which are two different copies) without a copyright notice for the photo itself nor for the newspaper as a whole. There is no copyright registration for the column in which the photo appears nor for the newspaper as a whole.

Chapter 2203.4 "Omission of Notice on Works First Published Between January 1, 1978 and February 28, 1989" of the U.S. Copyright Compendium states:

The omission of a notice on a work published between January 1, 1978 and February 28, 1989 with the authority of the copyright owner does not invalidate the copyright, provided that one of the following conditions has been met:

• The notice was omitted from no more than a relatively small number of copies or phonorecords distributed to the public; or
• The work was registered before or within five years after the publication without notice and a reasonable effort was made “to add notice to all copies or phonorecords that are distributed to the public in the United States after the omission has been discovered;” or
• The omission was “in violation of an express requirement in writing that, as a condition of the copyright owner’s authorization of the public distribution of copies or phonorecords, they bear the prescribed notice.”

17 U.S.C. § 405(a). Likewise, the omission of a notice on a work published between January 1, 1978 and February 28, 1989 does not invalidate the copyright in that work if the notice was removed from the copies or phonorecords without the authorization of the copyright owner. See 17 U.S.C. § 405(c).

Even if the copyright registration for the Philadelphia magazine applies to the photo, the photo was then subsequently published without notice and registration, with no evidence that "the omission has been discovered". Therefore the copyright was forfeited.

This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1978 and March 1, 1989 without a copyright notice, and its copyright was not subsequently registered with the U.S. Copyright Office within 5 years. Unless its author has been dead for several years, it is copyrighted in the countries or areas that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works, such as Canada (50 pma), Mainland China (50 pma, not Hong Kong or Macau), Germany (70 pma), Mexico (100 pma), Switzerland (70 pma), and other countries with individual treaties. See this page for further explanation. Deutsch ∙ English ∙ español ∙ français ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ 한국어 ∙ македонски ∙ português ∙ português do Brasil ∙ русский ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenščina ∙ 中文 ∙ 中文（简体） ∙ 中文（繁體） ∙ 中文（臺灣） ∙ +/−