On Fri, 28 Jul 1995 08:52:08 ES Joe Swift said: >A colleague of mine wants to know who controls the rights to Muybridge's Animal >Locomotion sequence of photographs (those funky pictures of people and animals >from the late 1800s, as he calls it). I assume it is public domain by now. >Does anyone know? Thanks for the assistance. > >jswift @ discovery.com > This is a tricky question. The original Muybridge plates and prints are clearly in public domain. The operative U.S. copyright and associated Bern conventions stipulate a 75 year term or a term of 50 years after the creator's death; Muybridge died in 1904. However, most readily available published sources (e.g., Dover edition) are likely covered by a copyright since the organization of the material *is* covered by copyright under the relevant terms. More: the institution or individual holding original (public domain) prints or negative have some rights of ownership that are not strictly speaking matters of copyright. BUT: Publications copyrighted prior to 1920 (i.e., seventy five years ago) *are* in public domain according to the terms of current U.S. copyright statute. More about copyright with files on film related topics and a hypertext file of the 1976 United States Copyright statute can be found at: http://astro.ocis.temple.edu/~pryluck/coyright.html ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]