Commons:Deletion requests/Stanley Kubrick self-portrait for Look

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Stanley Kubrick self-portrait for Look

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This early photographic self-portrait of Stanley Kubrick is apparently from the Look Magazine Collection at the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division. The Look copyright holder, Cowles Communications, Inc., transferred its copyrights to the Library of Congress, and the collection is now regarded as being in the public domain. The Kubrick estate maintains that Kubrick was only a staff photographer from January 7, 1947 to September 12, 1950, meaning that it only recognizes Kubrick photos in the collection from that time range as being in the public domain; the Kubrick estate would presumably attempt to enforce its copyrights on any of his photographs for Look from earlier or later.

In short photos taken by Stanley Kubrick are in the public domain if the following two conditions apply:

  1. They were taken between January 7, 1947–September 12, 1950, and
  2. They are part of the Look Magazine Collection at the Library of Congress.

This photo was taken by Kubrick for Look in some capacity, whether it was ever published in print or not. It is dated 1949. So far, so good. However, there's a big problem: I can't find the photograph in the Library of Congress's Look Magazine Collection. See for yourself:

  • There's also this slightly blurry photo that clearly depicts Kubrick, but "Kubrick, Stanley" is missing from the "subject" metadata.

The source for KubrickForLook.jpg is listed as:

"LOOK Magazine Collection, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [Reproduction number e.g., LC-L9-60-8812, frame 8]"

The problem is that's the example credit line, verbatim, recommended by the Library of Congress on its page about rights to Kubrick's photography. The abbreviation "e.g." means "for example", as in, the given ID number is just an example. (I understand how that could have been overlooked, given how it may appear that "e.g." is intended as part of the ID number itself.) The call number "LC-L9-60-8812-Z, no. 8" designates a photo of JFK by Bob Lerner.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong here, but I don't believe this was part of the Look Collection at the Library of Congress. We would thus have to presume it remains copyrighted. Brandt Luke Zorn (talk) 11:55, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Infrogmation: Thanks for digging up that additional information. I would try to dig up a copy of Drama and Shadows: Photographs 1945–1950 to see if it supplies any additional information, but used copies are expensive, there are no copies available in any libraries near me, and there are no digital copies available online.
    Just to make sure this point is clear to everyone who finds this discussion: the mere fact that a photograph was made by an employee of Look magazine, by itself, does not guarantee that the photograph is in the public domain. The Look collection at the Library of Congress—which is mostly, but not exclusively, public domain—does not contain the complete corpus of all published and unpublished Look photography. The Museum of the City of New York holds far more of Kubrick's Look photography than the Library of Congress, and none of his photos held at MCNY are in the public domain. (Incidentally, the MCNY does not appear to have the Kubrick mirror selfie in question either, at least not in a digitized form on its website.) Therefore it is not enough for a photograph to be from Look to determine it is in the public domain; it must be shown that the photograph is in the LoC's Look collection, as we cannot infer that any photograph made for Look is also in the Look collection. Brandt Luke Zorn (talk) 18:48, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
More info: there is an uncatalogued portion of the LoC's Look collection held on-site and in deep storage. Photos held in the uncatalogued portion are, obviously, not listed or available in any form through the online catalog, but they would be subject to the same PD-licensing conditions as the rest of the collection. It is possible that the Kubrick mirror selfie might originate from there, and if so there is a small hope that it could be public domain after all if we can reliably determine it originates from there. A copy of Drama and Shadows: Photographs 1945–1950 would be extremely helpful, since a credits section or credit line might supply the information we need. Brandt Luke Zorn (talk) 20:07, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment The photo does not appear in Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2002), ISBN 0-8212-2815-3, nor is featured or described in Stanley Kubrick at Look Magazine: Authorship and Genre in Photojournalism and Film, ISBN 9781841506111, the latter of which has a fairly comprehensive catalog of Stanley's "jobs" for Look as held at both the Library of Congress and the Museum of the City of New York. We don't know what job this was part of, but there is no mention of this kind of self-portrait. Brandt Luke Zorn (talk) 20:52, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted: per nomination. — Racconish 💬 12:46, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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