My approach to copyright is to first use common sense, make reasonable inquiries, and give the benefit of the doubt to including the material while recognizing the author's moral right to be given credit for his work no matter how old it is. The "better safe than sorry" approach that avoids all risk is a recipe for accomplishing nothing. Once due diligence has been applied, a policy of "It's easier to get forgiveness than permission" makes good sense. Willingness of the ISP to take down offending material on receipt of proper notice will protect him legally. A reputation for reasonable (rather than absolute) diligence should satisfy our users about the copyright safety of the material.

I couldn't agree more (well, actually, I don't agree that authors have any moral right to credit, but I certainly have no objection to giving them credit anyway). I don't think we should blindly accept any and all copyright claims for which there is no reasonable justification, and I would have no problem including things like the WPA drawings you mention. All that being said, common sense does occasionally come down on the oher side--Jennifer's dresses in particular look like fairly recent catalog photos, so it's a dafe bet that they're out. 0