Finding the license for a widely-used photograph

Question

I'm writing a blog post related to the C programming language, and would like to illustrate it with this iconic photograph of Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie in front of a DEC PDP-11, but only if doing so is legal.

The above link is the closest I can find to a canonical source for the photograph, but it doesn't say anything about a license to use it. "Courtesy of Gwen Bell" suggests Gwen Bell may have given the Computer History Museum permission, but that doesn't mean that permission is extended to anyone else.

TinEye reverse image search finds many other uses around the Internet, but none of them say anything about a license either.

I suspect the answer is: yes, everyone except the Computer History Museum is technically breaking the law by using this photo, just counting on no one caring enough to make an issue of it. Is there anything I am missing?

Added:

Linking to the original version of the picture is an option. I had been reluctant to do it by default, because I've seen a lot of broken links created that way (when the original gets moved around), and some site owners object (they consider it theft of bandwidth). I did not know that copyright law distinguishes that case; that is interesting to know!

In this case, following Jen's suggestion, I contacted the Computer History Museum, and they graciously replied with explicit permission to use the image (with attribution, of course).

Answer 1

Standard investigation paths would involve contacting:

• Gwen Bell
• Gordon Bell
• curators at the Computer History Museum
• Nokia (as acquirer of Acetel-Lucent, former via a merger with Lucent)
• Nokia Bell Labs (formerly Bell Labs, who held Lucent Technologies for some time and to whom copyright may have been transferred)
• etc.

You can also search the Copyright Registry.

These are steps one can take to attempt to identify the copyright holder. But always beware: some people might not understand whether they actually hold the copyright, and some might purport to provide permission or a licence when they don't have the ability to do so.

Answer 2

I checked the Wikipedia article about Ken Thompson which shows a version of this picture. It appears to be the same room, equipment, etc. but a slightly different angle and positions of Ken and Dennis.

Clicking on that picture gets you to the Wikimedia page. Which is where it starts to get a little interesting. That page says it is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic, which as I understand it would allow use as OP described.

It is not clear to me exactly who made the picture and how it got there. The Wikimedia page says it was taken by Peter Hamer ~ 1970, but not really clear when/how it was licensed, as this CC licenses didn't exist in 1970, and it wasn't actually uploaded by Peter Hamer.

But an interesting additional point is a link on that page to a bell-labs web page which is written in the first person by Dennis Ritchie (or at least appears to be so) and even includes a link to a higher-resolution image.

Arguably simply referencing (i.e., with appropriate attribution) the image from Wikimedia should be a safe way to go, though in the world of intellectual property there are no guarantees.

Answer 3

Are you sure you need a licence?

united-states

It’s certain that someone owns the copyright in the photo, so to use it legally, you need their permission or your use needs to be fair use. This involves a four factor test:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

I’m not going to do the analysis for you; you or your lawyer need to do that, but if it is fair use, you don’t need permission.

Incidentally, it might be that, in the circumstances, the thanks to Gwen Bell might be for donating the physical photograph, not for licensing the copyright in it.

Answer 4

If you're in the US, one case to look at might be Hunley v. Instagram, LLC. In this case, the Ninth Circuit court of appeals found that copyright is only violated when you host a copy of the photo on your own site. If you directly link to the image instead of making a copy on your own server, that is not considered a copy under the Copyright Act.

Answer 5

You're in luck: that photograph is from "circa 1970".

According to the Cornell chart of copyright terms, photographs from that era published in the United States were required to have a copyright notice in order to be copyrighted. This gives you two routes for determining the license.

1. Find a copy that was definitely published before 1978 without a copyright notice. Unless this lack was due to something like a printer's error, the photograph is in the public domain for failure to comply with copyright formalities.
2. Find a copy that was published with a copyright notice. This tells you who the copyright owner was, and gives you a starting point for chasing down the current owner and asking about a license.