Who owns the rights to filmmaker Stanley Kubrick's photograph of a lingerie model apparently being judged harshly by the office manager? I'm happy to provide the answer below. While I'm not a lawyer, it appears WE did for a time, but then someone stepped in and said the Kubrick estate owns it. Some 90 or so images Kubrick took for Look Magazine were given to the Library of Congress. I have absolutely no idea whether I can legally show this image in the amazing digital form now responsible for destroying the concept of ownership on a massive scale...
Some twenty years ago, I read that if "current statistical and demographic trends" continue, by a certain date every one of us would be either a lawyer or an Elvis impersonator. The prediction seems to have become half true.
Anyway, I would love to settle the matter for you, so I will posit a solution. If you would like to make a refrigerator magnet of of the model's tummy-shaper. I think you can only if you are using it for non-commercial purposes. You can make as many of them as you like, but you have to give them away.
I gave up counting how many times this image has appeared online.
Stanley Kubrick’s photographs are included in the LOOK Magazine Photograph Collection.
Access: Subject to P&P policy on serving originals.
Reproduction (photocopying, hand-held camera copying, photoduplication and other forms of copying allowed by "fair use"): Subject to P&P policy on copying.
Publication and other forms of distribution: Restrictions include:
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Subject Rights: Privacy and publicity rights of subjects depicted in the photographs may apply. For more information, see http://www.loc.gov/homepage/legal.html#privacy_publicity.
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Donor Restriction: Cowles Communications,
Inc., transferred all of its copyrights in the LOOK Magazine
Photograph Collection to the United States, but asked that the
Library convey Cowles’ desire that the photographs are “Not to be used
for advertising or trade purposes.” The Library cannot
provide further interpretation of this phrase.
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Photographer Rights: Copyright to
photographs not produced by LOOK staff photographers may be retained by
the photographer and/or his or her heirs. It is the
researcher’s obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or
other use restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing
materials found in the Library’s collections.
Updated Kubrick Rights Statement -- Communications from Kubrick Family and Estate: Based on communications with Stanley Kubrick’s family in 2001-2002, this rights statement originally said that there were no restrictions on Stanley Kubrick’s work for LOOK Magazine. In 2011, the Kubrick estate told the Library that Stanley Kubrick had been a staff photographer for only some of the period represented in the LOOK Magazine Photograph Collection. The Kubrick estate recognizes that Stanley Kubrick was a LOOK staff photographer from January 7, 1947 to September 12, 1950.Credit Line: Stanley Kubrick, photographer, LOOK Magazine Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [Reproduction number e.g., LC-L9-60-8812, frame 8].
Contact Information: Stanley Kubrick died on March 7, 1999. SK Film Archives, LLC, a company owned by the Stanley Kubrick family trusts, has informed the Library that it holds all rights in Stanley Kubrick's intellectual properties. Permissions requests may be directed to:
SK Film Archives LLC
c/o Wilmington Trust Company, Trustee Stanley Kubrick 1981 Trust
Rodney Square North
1100 North Market Street
Wilmington, DE 19890
Attention: Managing Director
For more information, please read: Copyright and Other Restrictions That Apply to Publication/Distribution of Images: Assessing the Risk of Using a P&P Image
