File:Harvey Bennett circa 1960.tif

• The Telegraph-Herald (Dubuque, Iowa), page six, 18 September 1960 – (Credit: AP Photofax)
• The Bakersfield Californian, front page, 17 September 1960 – (Credit: AP Wirephoto)

The image was published in newspapers without copyright notice as shown in all versions, which was required by the Copyright Act of 1909, which should have contained three elements:

1. The symbol © (letter C in a circle); the word “Copyright”; or the abbreviation “Copr.”
2. "The year of first publication. If the work is a derivative work or a compilation incorporating previously published material, the year date of first publication of the derivative work or compilation is sufficient. Examples of derivative works are translations or dramatizations; an example of a compilation is an anthology. The year may be omitted when a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, with accompanying textual matter, if any, is reproduced in or on greeting cards, postcards, stationery, jewelry, dolls, toys, or useful articles."

   This was not required for copyrighted photos published before 1978 under Copyright Act 1909, and omission of date may have been irrelevant to such works. However, Copyright Act of 1976 came into effect and then has applied to copyrighted materials published before 1978. Year has become required for works published before 1978. Consequently, pre-1973 copyrighted photos without a year of copyright and registration and required mandatory deposit into the Copyright Office lost copyright protection and then fell already into the public domain.

3. The name of the copyright owner, an abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a generally known alternative designation of owner.

   Example © 2007 Jane Doe.

See http://www.copyright.gov/history/1909act.pdf for older rules that apply to pre-1978 works without required notice. See more at Appendix A of the Copyright Act of 1976: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92appa.pdf.

Even when an actual file copy must have contained a copyright notice, the copyright renewal registration, required for pre-1964 works, was not found at copyright.gov; search terms related to wire agencies and the pictured subject were attempted without avail. Therefore, copyright must have expired in 1988 or beforehand.

Also, the image is not found at either Getty Images or AP Images.

Film production expert Eve Light Honthaner 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.

The Professional Photographer's Legal Handbook By Nancy E. Wolff, Allworth Communications, 2007, p. 55:

There is a vast body of photographs, including but not limited to publicity stills, that have no notice as to who may have created them.

Creative Clearance-Publicity photos archive copy at the Wayback Machine"

Publicity Photos (star headshots) older publicity stills have usually not been copyrighted and since they have been disseminated to the public, they are generally considered public domain and therefore there is no necessity to clear them with the studio that produced them (if you can even determine who did).

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. العربية ∙ Deutsch ∙ English ∙ español ∙ français ∙ galego ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ 한국어 ∙ македонски ∙ português ∙ português do Brasil ∙ русский ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenščina ∙ українська ∙ 简体中文 ∙ 繁體中文 ∙ +/−