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Re: Image copyrights, again

From: Terry Harpold <tharpold~at~english.ufl.edu>
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 19:29:43 -0400
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

On Wednesday, September 1, 2004, Jean-Michel Margot <jmmargot~at~mindspring.com> writes:

>Fifty years after the death of the author (not counting the wars years),
>his material (text and illustrations) are in the public domain in France.
>It's now 40 years that scholars around the world duplicate Hetzel's Verne
>engravings in their scholarly publications.

To complicate my question a bit further: which applies in the case of Hetzel's editions -- the death of the author, the death of the artist, or the date of publication of the work? What do we know about Hetzel's control over the rights to reproduction of work by those who contributed to the editions (illustrators, authors, illustrators, engravers, etc.) In a modern vernacular, the question would be perhaps phrased, "Did any of the artists retain rights after publication, or were they signed entirely over to the publisher?" Was that distinction even operative in late 19th-century French publishing?

Assuming that the rights to images from the _Voyages extraordinaires_ have passed into the public domain, is it still possible that, in the case of selected editions or illustrations, that someone must give permission for their reproduction -- such as is the case, for example, of paintings which were painted, say, more than a century ago, but which reside in a museum? I've always been a little unclear on that matter.

My prospective editor reports that the 50-70-75 year time lapse is not sufficient; he needs proof that no one still controls rights to the images. It's a legitimate question in a litigious era, but I'm not sure about where to begin to answer it...

TH

----------------------------------------------
Terry Harpold
Assistant Professor
Department of English
University of Florida

tharpold~at~acm.org
tharpold~at~english.ufl.edu
http://www.english.ufl.edu/~tharpold

"Reading in no way obliges you to understand."
Received on Thu 02 Sep 2004 - 04:43:00 IDT

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