On 4/6/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
It was the case used to back up the copyright claim on "It's a Wonderful Life". I would argue that just because a specific copyright claim has not be renewed that does not mean that the image enters the public domain. That can only happen if all copyright claims failed to be renewed.
"It's a Wonderful Life" involved a derivative work, again. The scenario I brought up does not, unless it's argued that the first publication of an image in a larger work gave the copyright holders of that larger work a copyright over even parts of that work not created or owned by them where the owner has not sold exclusive rights but is still free to sell to others.
If the first publication as a part of a much larger work did create a copyright in that image independent of the larger work, and thus the second publication of the image would be technically a derivative work of the first, and the lack of ability of restriction of the second work by the copyright holders of the first deemed to result from contract law - that would mean that if the first work was not renewed and entered the public domain, then the image (if copied from that work, at least) would also be in the public domain, since copyright does not flow backward from derivative to original.
I suspect that issues like these are why it's in some ways better that the US signed the Berne Convention and adopted the principle of all works being copyrighted at birth independent of publication status. It does simplify this kind of thing immensely. The flip side, of course, is that everything is copyrighted even when it does nobody any good.
What I'm guessing is that there is actually no truly applicable case law in this matter, as with a lot of edge cases in copyright law.
-Matt