New Jersey | Technology Law
Legal Question
I have a friend who buys vintage movie magazines on line. She then cuts out movie stars full page pictures, copies them and sells them on ebay. Is this legal?
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Legal Answer
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Read More Answered By: John Corbett |
The practice of selling copies of commercially valuable parts of a magazine is a violation of the publisher's copyright. On the facts that you recited, there is a good chance that the practice also violates the copyrights of the artist and the photographer. The term of copyright has changed over the years and the term for any specific work would be governed by the law that applied when the copyright first attached to the work. However, your friend should consider anything less than 75 years old to be covered by a valid copyright and the period is likely to be longer.
It is not much help that the movie star may be dead. Most stars who have intellectual property of any value in their estates are represented by an estate manager. They can be very agressive about enforcing copyrights and they are generally successful in collecting both damages and costs if infringment can be proved. Statutory damages can be as much as $150,000 per work infringed where the infringement is willfull. The courts tend to set such damages to be high as a deterrent to other potential infringers and to protect copyright owners.
See also: http://info.corbettlaw.net/lawguru.htm
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