Copyright and Public Domain

Any work originating in the United States in the Public Domain is out of copyright also in other countries. Here is a list of cases where works are in the Public Domain in the United States (2020).

1. Anything published before Jan 1, 1929.
2. Anything published WITHOUT a copyright notice until 1977.
3. Anything published WITH a copyright notice between 1928 and 1963 if the copyright was not renewed after 28 years from the first publication.
4. Advertisements published between 1928 and 1977 WITHOUT a copyright notice IN THE AD PAGE, even if the container magazine has a copyright notice.
5. Advertisements published between 1928 and 1977 WITH a copyright notice IN THE AD PAGE, but not renewed 28 years after publication.

6. U.S. government works (i.e., not protected by the U.S. Copyright Act). Therefore, you can freely use them (in a copyright sense) without obtaining permission or paying a copyright fee. You can even edit, adapt, and republish this work without permission.

There can be possible additional copyright, especially for notable artists that own their copyrights. In this case, their work falls in the public domain 70 years after death. However, in many cases, the artists have been directly employed by the magazine’s publishers, consequently, the copyright holders.

Works published in the United States from 1929to 1963 fell into the Public Domain if the copyright was not renewed with the Copyright Office during the 28th year after publication.
But how can you know if the copyright of the work was renewed or not? There are four ways to go.

1. Go to the Online Books Page or to The Internet Archive “Catalog of Copyright Records” page. This research is complicated, even for professionals.

2. Use the U.S. Copyright Office paid search service. It’s effective but expensive.

3. Go to the invaluable section of upenn.edu “First copyright renewals for periodicals” edited by John Mark Ockerbloom, that allows you to precisely determine the copyright status of the content of hundreds of magazines.
For instance, if you go to the Photoplay Page you can determine whether any issue or specific content is under the copyright or not.

4. Follow the tags of Ikonographia. In any post, you can find a “Copyrights and Credit” section. Unless differently stated, copyright status refers to the United States.

All U.S. government works (i.e., not protected by the U.S. Copyright Act) can be freely used (in a copyright sense) without obtaining permission or paying a copyright fee. You can even edit, adapt, and republish these works without permission.

As an example, Ansel Adam’s works are mostly copyrighted. Still, the notable work documenting Japanese Americans interned at the Manzanar War Relocation Center is in PD as the US Government hired Mr.Adams.
Likewise, the work for Farm Security Administration by Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Russel Lee, Gordon Parks, and more is in Public Domain.

Works published or made available to the public in the UK before 1 January 1969.

The copyright expires 70 years after the first publication.
The copyright expires 70 years after the author’s death if the work is a photograph.

Please see this flowchart by the National Archives.

Typographical arrangement of published editions.
In the UK, copyright in the actual typographical layout of the published editions only lasts 25 years from the end of the year it was published. More info in the next tab.

Exceptions: Works under Crown-Copyright. Please see the “Crown Copyright” tab.

This section includes virtually all the contents from British Periodicals and Books published on this site.

The 1988 UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act states the duration of copyright as:

Typographical arrangement of published editions.
In the UK, copyright in the actual typographical layout of the published editions only lasts 25 years from the end of the year it was published. In other words, reproducing the magazines by scanning them would not pose any problem. Source at gov.uk, see 2.V.

A typographical arrangement refers to the way a published edition is visually laid out, e.g., columns of text on the page, where illustrations are inserted, etc. Source, see “Typographical arrangements”.
This category includes magazines, newspapers, books, booklets, brochures, flyers, and posters.

In the case of republishing individual articles and illustrations (with different designs), the copyright expires after 70 years from the author’s death. Source.

In Practice
There is no copyright in the typographical arrangement of any edition published in the UK for the first time before 1 June 1957. It was first introduced under the 1956 Copyright Act and continued in The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (the CDPA).

The CDPA defines a published edition as ‘a published edition of the whole or any part of one or more literary, dramatic or musical works’: artistic works are not protected.
The duration of the typographical right is 25 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was first published. Source.

Other sources:
UK National Archives
The UK Copyright Service.
Paul Burness

Please notice that any advice or comment provided here is not and does not purport to be legal advice as defined by s.12 of the Legal Services Act 2007.

Ikonographia takes copyright matters seriously. Therefore, don’t hesitate to contact us if you think you are the copyright owner. If you are right, we will work with you to find a solution you agree with or permanently take the relevant part of the website’s content.

Crown copyright covers all works that are “prepared or published by or under the direction or control of Her Majesty or any government department.”
With few variations, it’s also valid in the Commonwealth countries. Wikipedia.

If the work was first made available to the public before 1 January 1969, the copyright expires 50 years after the first publication.

Please see this flowchart by the National Archives.

The copyright for illustrations, photographs, and texts expires 70 years after the author’s death.
The copyright of magazines and periodicals (Collective work)  expires 50 years after the first publication.
This is particularly valid for the actual typographical layout of the published editions. In other words, reproducing the magazines by scanning them would not pose any problem.

“Collective Work” is a work of several authors assembled and published under the direction of one natural or legal person who owns the copyright in the work as a whole. Magazines fall into this category.

There were several international agreements governing copyright, such as “The Universal Copyright Convention” (UCC) adopted in Geneva in 1952 and the “TRIPS Agreement” negotiated between 1989 and 1990 and administered by the WTO.

The European Union has its copyright law applicable within the EU. As a result, copyright law is largely harmonized in the Union, although country to country, significant differences exist.
This means it is challenging to determine if a “Collective Work” is still under copyright.

Please notice that any advice or comment provided here is not and does not purport to be legal advice as defined by s.12 of the Legal Services Act 2007.

Ikonographia takes copyright matters seriously. Therefore, don’t hesitate to contact us if you think you are the copyright owner. If you are right, we will work with you to find a solution that you agree with or permanently take the relevant part of the website’s content.

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When a work is in the public domain, it is free for use by anyone for any purpose without restriction under copyright law. Public domain is the purest form of open/free, since no one owns or controls the material in any way.

Works that are in the public domain in one legal jurisdiction are not necessarily in the public domain worldwide. Copyright laws differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, both in duration of protection and what constitutes copyrightable subject matter. For example a US Government work clearly in the public domain in the United States may or may not be free of copyright restrictions and in the public domain in other jurisdiction. At present, one of the only ways to be certain that a particular work is in the public domain worldwide is to see if the copyright holder has dedicated all rights to the work to the public domain by using CC0, the “no copyright reserved” option in the Creative Commons toolkit.

This text is an excerpt from the Public Domain page of wiki.creativecommons.org.

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Great institutions certify if the work showcased on their sites are under Public Domain or not. However, as seen in the previous chapter, in general, this “status” is referred to as their country.

Of course, in some cases, you can be sure that content is definitely in Public Domain in any country. An example is the iconic Van Gogh’s Self Portrait kept at the Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam. The museum put that work in Public Domain and can be used without restrictions worldwide.

Here a list of the most important Institutions with digital archives in the Public Domain.

The Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library, offers free universal access to books, movies & music, and 406 billion archived web pages. However, not all the works are in Public Domain as some contents can be used only for Fair Use.
For example, Hollywood Magazine from January to December 1936. To be sure, check in the “Show More” section, and you may find the “Possible copyright status” where the Library of Congress has determined that this item is not in copyright.

The Library of Congress and The New York Public Library Digital Collections made available hundreds of thousands of images with an average very high reproduction quality.

The Nation Archives Catalog keeps over 90 million digital files of the US Government that, by law, are in Public Domain, no matter the publication date.

The Metropolitan Museum, with 406.000 images of public-domain works in its collection available under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).

The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or is in the Public Domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required.

The Rijksmuseum is a Dutch national library based in Amsterdam with a unique collection of works of arts, prints, and magazines in the Public Domain.

Gallica, the digital dept. of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, made available millions of documents, books, and magazines, mostly french, including several years of Vogue Paris. They have a different policy about their Public Domain works as downloading them they ask you to agree their policy that doesn’t allow any kind of use that may directly bring revenues!

Sorry for no citing many other Sources. Hundreds of millions of resources are available, often free on the Web. The problem is finding, sorting out, aggregate, putting in a contest, and, when necessary, digitally restoring them; this is where Ikonographia stands for.

rightsstatements.org is a non-profit organization that determines if an item is under copyright, partial copyright, or public domain in the United States.
Where possible, we’ll add their logo to the pages/pictures.
The same copyright status may not be valid for other countries.

Site’s home page
No copyright – United States

Unless differently specified, the images in Public Domain on this website are freely downloadable.
We charge a moderate amount for high-resolution files. Keeping this site is very expensive, and we don’t add advertisements.
Most files are reproduced in high resolution from original prints and professionally restored. Seamless double pages reproduction, for instance, requires hard work.
In some cases, the files are taken from existing digital files and digitally restored at the higher quality available today.

A first example of what we are doing. We are publishing some stories about the iconic Flair Magazine of 1950 that are now out of copyright. We first needed to find and buy all the 12 scarce magazine issues—difficult and expensive task.
Then we professionally reproduced all the yellowish pages correcting strong color shifts and seamlessly matching the double spreads edits.
The next step was to prepare the introduction, texts, and captions. Texts were partially written from scratch by us. Other parts were taken from the splendid magazine body copies, including the magnificent editor’s presentation.

Another example is from existing digital files. The notable photographer Tony Frissel donated his archive to the Library of Congress and put it under Public Domain, free to download and use.
A relevant part of his archive is editorial work for Vogue. We are preparing some stories on this topic. What does it mean?
We must browse in decent resolution more than 50,000 photographs. Download hundreds of hi-res 100MB/ to 200MB each. Select a smaller amount, probably a couple of hundred.
The files are raw scans from film and must be heavily post-produced and cleaned from dust and scratches. At last, we must visually “equalize” the files, write intro text add captions, and create the stories. A painstaking task.

Be sure this will be the best Tony Frissel content on the web. You can now understand how much hard work is required, so we must charge the hi-res files on sale in the store.

Of course, the price will be lower than the copyrighted items sold in the Stock section of the shop.

The images in the Stock Archive are copyrighted. By purchasing them, you will be entitled to an unlimited Royalty-Free license.
The license is entitled to the buyer as an individual or organization, and it’s non-transferable and non-sublicensable. In other words, you cannot resell the images or prints made from those images.

Citation is mandatory (Photographer name/ikonographia.com), as specified in the License/Terms of use tab on any product page.

The licenses for some images in the Stock Archive are limited to editorial use, as specified in the pages. You can still contact us to arrange the rights of use when possible.