On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 6:26 PM, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia)
<newyorkbrad(a)gmail.com> wrote:
It seems to me that common sense should be used in
this as in all
other matters. A 60-year-old photograph that has never been the
subject of any claim of ownership and which has been repeatly used in
multiple media around the world without challenge is freely usable in
any practical sense.
Newyorkbrad
You would think so, but people have challenged them nevertheless. An
editor who's knowledgeable about images told me it was because the
Geman photo agency Ullstein Bild,
http://www.topfoto.co.uk/aboutus/suppliers/ullstein/ullstein.html who
claim ownership of some WWII images, had made threatening noises to
the Foundation. Apparently that made people nervous even about images
the agency had no claim over.
The situation hasn't been helped by the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum routinely claiming copyright of images on their
website, even when there's no reason to suppose they own the
copyright, which meant editors who wanted to challenge the images
could point to that copyright claim. We'd write to the museum to get
clarification, but usually wouldn't get a response. It's been an
ongoing problem for years.