File:Wallace Stevens, 1948.jpg

Original file (1,135 × 1,456 pixels, file size: 309 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Summary

Description
English: Photo portrait of American poet Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) used for the first-edition cover of The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (1954).
Date Published as the cover of The Collected Poems in 1954 (see a freely loanable ebook version of the book's first edition at the Internet Archive here). According to a website maintained by the University of Pennsylvania English Department, the photo was taken in 1948.
Source Scan of the portrait sourced from the article "Wallace Stevens Documentary At Twain House" (June 17, 2016) at the Hartford Courant (direct link to jpg). Cropped from the original to match what is seen on the cover of Collected Poems. Lightly retouched by uploader to adjust exposure and to remove smudges, scratches, etc. The upload history includes the portrait as it appears on Collected Poems (to demonstrate that the crop matches the book cover), the unretouched but cropped version of the high-res photo, and the retouched version.
Author Photograph by Sylvia Salmi. For countries that base the length of a copyright term on the date of the author's death and do not use the rule of the shorter term: According to lakechapalaartists.com, Sylvia Salmi died in 1977. This means that, for example, in countries without the rule of the shorter term and a copyright term of 50 p.m.a. (including Canada), the photo will not be in the public domain until January 1, 2028 (the beginning of the 51st year after 1977).
Permission
(Reusing this file)

No permission is required.

  1. First, the photo is a mechanical scan/photocopy of the original cover and does not qualify for independent copyright protection.
  2. Second, the portrait was first published prior to 1978 without a valid copyright notice. Opus Posthumous was first published in 1957; the hardcover book itself carried a copyright notice, so its contents remain copyrighted. However, the first-edition dust jacket did not carry a separate copyright notice. According to The Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices: Chapter 2200, § 2207.1(C) at p. 15:
"A notice of copyright on the dust jacket of a book is not an acceptable notice for the book, because the dust jacket is not permanently attached to the book. Likewise, a notice appearing in a book is not an acceptable notice for the dust jacket or any material appearing on that dust jacket, even if the book refers to the jacket or material appearing on the jacket."

Keep in mind that the pre-1989 requirements for copyright notice were highly formalistic and, other than a few enumerated exceptions, required these three elements:

  1. "The symbol © or the word 'Copyright' or the abbreviation 'Copr.' or an acceptable variant such as "(c)";
  2. "The year of first publication for the work"; and
  3. "The name of the copyright owner, or an abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a generally known alternative designation of the owner."

If just one of these elements is omitted, the work is deemed to have been published without notice and is not eligible for copyright protection. None of these elements—the name "Sylvia Salmi", the year of publication, a copyright symbol (or any acceptable variant)—appear anywhere on the dust jacket. The identifications of the publisher and author do not meet these requirements. The full dust jacket can be seen at the Internet Archive (registration required to see the full ebook, and there may be a waitlist for free access, but the front cover, front flap, and back cover can be seen in preview).


A cropped portion of Salmi's photograph was used for the cover of Collected Poems. This image has been cropped from a high-resolution scan of the original uncropped photo so that it matches the dimensions of the Collected Poems cover. The most conspicuous difference is that the original uncropped portrait shows more of Stevens's crossed arms. It is unclear whether the "uncropped" portions from the original photo are under copyright protection or not; without further information they should be presumed to be copyrighted.

Nevertheless, the original portrait is considered to have been published to at least the same extent that it was "disclosed" by its publication as part of the dust jacket (i.e., the cropped portion). See Shoptalk, Ltd. v. Concorde-New Horizons Corp., 168 F.3d 586, 591 (2d Cir. 1999): "[W]hen the author consents to the inclusion of [her] work in a derivative work, the publication of the derivative work, to the extent . . . it discloses the original work, also constitutes publication of [the] underlying work." Therefore, the dust jacket's publication without a copyright notice rendered at least the cropped portion of the portrait ineligible for copyright and in the public domain.


This is a retouched picture, which means that it has been digitally altered from its original version. Modifications made by Blz 2049.

Licensing

This image is in the public domain because it is a mere mechanical scan or photocopy of a public domain original, or – from the available evidence – is so similar to such a scan or photocopy that no copyright protection can be expected to arise. The original itself is in the public domain for the following reason:
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in the United States between 1929 and 1977, inclusive, without a copyright notice. For further explanation, see Commons:Hirtle chart as well as a detailed definition of "publication" for public art.
The author died in 1977, so this work is also in the public domain in jurisdictions where the copyright term is the author's life plus 30 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

العربية  беларуская (тарашкевіца)  čeština  Deutsch  Ελληνικά  English  español  français  Bahasa Indonesia  italiano  日本語  한국어  македонски  Nederlands  português  русский  sicilianu  slovenščina  ไทย  Tiếng Việt  中文(简体)  中文(繁體)  +/−

Flag of the United States
Flag of the United States

This tag is designed for use where there may be a need to assert that any enhancements (eg brightness, contrast, colour-matching, sharpening) are in themselves insufficiently creative to generate a new copyright. It can be used where it is unknown whether any enhancements have been made, as well as when the enhancements are clear but insufficient. For known raw unenhanced scans you can use an appropriate {{PD-old}} tag instead. For usage, see Commons:When to use the PD-scan tag.


Note: This tag applies to scans and photocopies only. For photographs of public domain originals taken from afar, {{PD-Art}} may be applicable. See Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag.

Captions

Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents

Items portrayed in this file

depicts

image/jpeg

File history

Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.

Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current04:04, 30 October 2019Thumbnail for version as of 04:04, 30 October 20191,135 × 1,456 (309 KB)Blz 2049Another crack at adjusting the exposure; my first try seems too bright to me now
19:51, 12 August 2019Thumbnail for version as of 19:51, 12 August 20191,135 × 1,456 (377 KB)Blz 2049Retouched version
19:50, 12 August 2019Thumbnail for version as of 19:50, 12 August 20191,142 × 1,456 (388 KB)Blz 2049Cropped, unretouched version of the scan used by the Hartford Courant
19:49, 12 August 2019Thumbnail for version as of 19:49, 12 August 20191,142 × 1,456 (441 KB)Blz 2049== {{int:filedesc}} == {{Information |Description={{en|1=Photo portrait of American poet Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) used for the first-edition cover of ''The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens'' (1954).}} |Source=Scan of the portrait sourced from the article [https://www.courant.com/ctnow/movies/hc-wallace-stevens-doc-twain-house-hartford-0616-20160617-story.html "Wallace Stevens Documentary At Twain House"] (June 17, 2016) at the ''[[w:Hartford Courant|Hartford Courant...

The following 3 pages use this file:

Global file usage

The following other wikis use this file:

Metadata