Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Sterling Heyden.jpg

Why public domain? Multichill (talk) 16:22, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

•  Info I found that on the IMDB page of the movie: "After the film was withdrawn from circulation, there was a failure to renew the copyright and it fell into the public domain. As a result, in the early years of home video, the film became widely available from a number of discount/public domain labels". I don't know about the american copyright laws, but usually the authors do not have anything to do or pay for the copyright to be valid, have they? --Eusebius (talk) 16:37, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I found this explanatory paragraph here: "Public Domain refers to the body of creative works and knowledge in which no person, government or organization has any proprietary interest such as a copyright. These works are considered part of the public cultural heritage and may be freely used by all." So if we accept the IMDB as authoritative, "Suddenly" (where the pic comes from)is in the public domain and nobody owns copyright on that material. Therefore, the pic of Sterling Hayden shouldn't be deleted. Regards ----146.155.48.141 18:24, 5 December 2008 (UTC) ----Cratón (talk) 18:26, 5 December 2008 (UTC) (sorry, forgot to log on)[reply]

That's no problem for me, but I still wonder how this was made possible. --Eusebius (talk) 18:35, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

US copyright law, historically, was quite different from that of Europe and most of the rest of the world. Most of the differences have now been erased, but not, in many cases, retroactively; anything that had fallen out of copyright under the previous regime was not restored to copyrighted status. Formerly, US copyright law required renewals by the copyright holder to retain copyright, among other differences. Works published before the mid-1960s could have had this happen. Morven (talk) 21:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, a procedure similar to patents then... Thanks for the information. --Eusebius (talk) 22:24, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kept. After the film was withdrawn from circulation, there was a failure to renew the copyright and it fell into the public domain. --Tryphon (talk) 02:58, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]