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File:Tracy Hepburn Desk Set.jpg

Tracy_Hepburn_Desk_Set.jpg ‎(265 × 298 pixels, file size: 87 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

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Description
  • Publicity image for the 1957 film Desk Set, featuring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.
  • Such images were taken by a studio photographer, and then disseminated to the media and the public to promote the film (see Film still).
  • This is definitely an image taken to promote the film, as they are dressed as the characters (see, for instance, this screenshot from the film, where they are wearing the same clothes.) Another image from the same photoshoot can be seen here. Tracy and Hepburn did not pose for images together unless it was to promote a film.

Public domain explanation

  • With regards to publicity images, Eve Light Honthaner writes in The Complete Film Production Handbook, (Focal Press, 2001 p. 211.):
"Publicity photos (star headshots) have traditionally not been copyrighted. Since they are disseminated to the public, they are generally considered public domain, and therefore clearance by the studio that produced them is not necessary."
  • Gerald Mast, in Film Study and the Copyright Law (1989) p. 87, has written:
"According to the old copyright act, such production stills were not automatically copyrighted as part of the film and required separate copyrights as photographic stills ... Most studios have never bothered to copyright these stills because they were happy to see them pass into the public domain, to be used by as many people in as many publications as possible."
  • If the image was copyrighted, the copyright would have had be be renewed in 1985 (28 years after publiciation, as stated by the 1909 Copyright Act, which was law until 1978). A search for the term "Desk Set" with The United States Copyright Office reveals that the movie has its copyright renewed in this year, but there is no indication that any publicty photographs did. Searching for "Katharine Hepburn" and "Spencer Tracy" also find no evidence that a photograph taken of them in 1957 had its copyright renewed.
Date
Source [1] (direct link to image)
Author 20th Century Fox (work for hire)
Permission
(Reusing this file)
Public domain
This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1929 and 1963, and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was not renewed. For further explanation, see Commons:Hirtle chart and the copyright renewal logs.
Note that it may still be copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works (depending on the date of the author's death), such as Canada (70 years p.m.a.), Mainland China (50 years p.m.a., not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 years p.m.a.), Mexico (100 years p.m.a.), Switzerland (70 years p.m.a.), and other countries with individual treaties.

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Date/TimeDimensionsUserComment
current20:46, 10 September 2017265 × 298 (87 KB)WikiPedantcropped away excess background from top margin; adjusted colors a little more

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