Thanks so much to everyone who responded to my inquiry re: securing
copyright clearance for film stills. Some of you asked to know what people
said, so I've summarized the responses below. Keep in mind of course that
this summary is based on the responses I received, and is not legal advice
or legal recommendations of any sort.
1. There is no comparable "middleman" concept like Art Resource that
handles distribution/copyright clearance for film stills or film photos.
2. Essentially, to secure copyright clearance, you should contact the film
studio directly. In the case of photos of film stars that may not
necessarily be associated with a particular film, you would need to contact
the star's agent and/or the star him/herself and/or his/her
descendants. You may have to contact the Screen Actors' Guild also. Be
prepared: doing so is probably going to cost a lot of money. HOWEVER....
3. It turns out that most of the time, film studio have generated film
stills specifically for promotional purposes and want(ed) them distributed
for publicity. Typically these studios did not/do not habitually copyright
these works. Many people believe, then, that this puts them in the public
domain. Some people suggested that studios often do not notice these
reproductions in books and thus probably wouldn't notice a film still being
used. Assuming there is no information on a particular photo (e.g. it's
just a photo w/o any information as to who created it), and you own the
photo, some suggested the notion of saying the image was from the "author's
collection."
4. It might be useful to check with film archives, such as those at the
Library of Congress and the Museum of Modern Art, to see if they own these
works and may offer official copies of film stills for publications.
5. Two resources that you might find useful to consult:
"Fair Usage Publication of Film Stills" by Kristin Thompson (Report of the
Ad Hoc Committee of the Society For Cinema Studies) --
http://www.cinemastudies.org/CJdocs/Thompson2.htm
Getting it Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about
Serious Books by William Germano (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2001).
6. Assuming the publication is a book, it might be useful ultimately to
have the publisher decide the best way to publish these images. If
preparing a book proposal it might be worth mentioning if the author
him/herself owns specific images that they would like to see reproduced in
the book.
Thanks again to everyone who assisted me in this inquiry. My patron will
certainly find it all very useful.
-- Roberto
==================================================
Roberto C. Ferrari
Head of Access Services
Arts & Humanities Librarian
Wimberly Library
Florida Atlantic University
777 Glades Rd., Boca Raton, FL 33431
PHONE: 561-297-3575
FAX: 561-338-3863
EMAIL: [log in to unmask]
WEB: http://www.library.fau.edu/geninfo/people/rferrari.htm
==================================================
__________________________________________________________________
Mail submissions to [log in to unmask]
Administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc)
to [log in to unmask]
ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance:
http://lsv.uky.edu/archives/arlis-l.html
Questions may be addressed to list owner (Kerri Scannell) at: [log in to unmask]
