Arrested Development

[Chris Kern]

I wasn't quite sure where to post this, but it was too good not to share.  (The initial medium is film, but the post-processing is digital—a critical factor in resurrecting the original images.)

[Mark D Segal]

Absolutely remarkable. Thanks for finding and sharing.

[Fernando García]

Thanks. Really interesting.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I wasn't quite sure where to post this, but it was too good not to share.  (The initial medium is film, but the post-processing is digital—a critical factor in resurrecting the original images.)

Thanks for sharing, it's quite interesting.

However, their Copyright policy/claims are debatable (depending on one's jurisdiction). Under the Berne convention signatories, the persons who took the images are the IP/copyright holders (unless the Copyright has expired, which would need verification). But I understand they want to protect the labor they put in recovering the images.

Cheers,
Bart

[Mark D Segal]

Bart, You may find the copyright issue "debatable", but did you go to their website and read it? I appears to be American, hence American copyright law and any relationship it bears to the Berne convention should be known to the owner of this project, and I must assume he is well aware of the copyright status of the materials he is handling and has every good intention to respect potential ownership claims based on this statement on the website:

"Do you recognize someone in the project?  Please let us know so we can reconnect them with their lost, but not forgotten images."

To my mind, the real value of bringing this project to our attention lies in its potential historic value, and the rather important technical fact that developing these rolls of film actually yielded usable photographs after seven decades; there would have been none without this contribution.  Copyright law and who can claim ownership to what under such conditions is rather complex and usually handled by attorneys who are specialized in that domain, so so I expect if there were issues the owner of the website would know exactly who to contact for dealing with them. He would have every interest in minimizing legal problems, while undertaking a project like this that numerous people could find really valuable.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Bart, You may find the copyright issue "debatable", but did you go to their website and read it?

Hi Mark,

Of course I did. How otherwise could I have noticed they copyright claim?

I appears to be American, hence American copyright law and any relationship it bears to the Berne convention should be known to the owner of this project, and I must assume he is well aware of the copyright status of the materials he is handling and has every good intention to respect potential ownership claims based on this statement on the website:

"Do you recognize someone in the project?  Please let us know so we can reconnect them with their lost, but not forgotten images."

I have no way of verifying whether the owner of the site is aware of the copyright status, other than his claim. I also do not question his motives. That doesn't make him right in assuming he has the copyright though ...
The USA version of the Copyright Act as I understand it, is not that much different from the original Berne Convention agreements, which were co-signed by the USA. The American version makes a difference in the amount of damages that can be claimed, if ownership wasn't registered though. But that just lawyers providing work for lawyers, and it doesn't change who has Copyright of the original work. It's just a mechanism to make it easier for some to prove who published a tangible version of the work first, not who owns the Copyright.

To my mind, the real value of bringing this project to our attention lies in its potential historic value, and the rather important technical fact that developing these rolls of film actually yielded usable photographs after seven decades; there would have been none without this contribution.

I agree. It's also a great tool for anthropologists as a document of common everyday life in a certain period of past time. It also paints a grim situation, if not remedied in time, with so many digital images not being preserved and properly protected against loss. What gets preserved may not be an accurate cross-section of how things really are. So yes, there is lots of value in this type of preservation.

Cheers,
Bart

[Mark D Segal]

Hi Mark,


The USA version of the Copyright Act as I understand it,.............

Cheers,
Bart

To my mind, the better part of valour is to leave that to the people who are expert in this really complex field. I know very well how lawyers can make work for lawyers, but at the same time I wouldn't second-guess either the owner of the website or the legal underpinnings; however that's just me. Each to his own.

We agree on the substance of the potential social and photographic importance of this work.

[Chris Kern]

Cornell University offers an excellent chart explaining the terms of and requirements for copyright protection in the United States.  U.S. copyright law was fundamentally changed from a registration-based to a creator-based system with the ratification of the Berne Convention in March, 1989.  Copyright protection for pre-Berne and post-Berne works is quite different—and the evaluation matrix encapsulated in the Cornell chart is quite complex due to the many permutations over the years of copyright law in the United States.

[Mark D Segal]

That's really helpful Chris and I think underscores with a factual structure the general point I suggested above. Beyond that however, what should make laymen trepidate over getting into this are additional legal questions - for example, do latent images exist as a "work" before they are developed? Does the person who made it possible to see these works as works by virtue of developing the film have any claim over the works? Do the conditions in which the films were acquired matter? What kind of legal provisioning would apply to claims of ownership over these works and with what implications for ownership of copyrights, especially if the photographer had since passed away, and if so is there an estate that could legitimately lay claim to them, and on it goes.

I just enjoy the fact this treasure-trove was brought to life.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Cornell University offers an excellent chart explaining the terms of and requirements for copyright protection in the United States.  U.S. copyright law was fundamentally changed from a registration-based to a creator-based system with the ratification of the Berne Convention in March, 1989.  Copyright protection for pre-Berne and post-Berne works is quite different—and the evaluation matrix encapsulated in the Cornell chart is quite complex due to the many permutations over the years of copyright law in the United States.

Hi Chris,

Thanks, excellent overview for the USA.

Cheers,
Bart

[Alan Goldhammer]

The March 1989 change to the US law is more commonly called the "Mickey Mouse extension" and sponsored by the late Congressman Sonny Bono (yes, the half of Sonny & Cher).  The extension to 70 years was to help out Hollywood who saw a lot of copyrights expiring.  It was a bad decision back then.

[Chris Kern]

The March 1989 change to the US law is more commonly called the "Mickey Mouse extension" and sponsored by the late Congressman Sonny Bono (yes, the half of Sonny & Cher).  The extension to 70 years was to help out Hollywood who saw a lot of copyrights expiring.

Correct in substance, but you have the wrong date.  What happened in March, 1989, was that the United States ratified the Berne Convention and, by doing so, changed U.S. copyright law from a registration-based system to a creator-based system.  (Although as Bart pointed out previously in this thread, some special statutory benefits still accrue to registered copyright holders in the United States.)

Nine years later, in October, 1998, President Clinton signed into law what had become known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (named in honor of the late congressman), which extended the time before copyrighted works become part of the public domain beyond the minimum requirements of the Berne treaty.

[Mark D Segal]

Some of this interesting discussion reminds me of partially analogous situations such as hijacked art and sunken treasure. Reverting to the photography, it could be interesting to discuss the value and value to whom for such photographs. Do they reach beyond being personal mementos to being of true historical documentary value? Do their photographic qualities compare well with those of the established documentary photographs now in archives covering the great wars? I can see the work of the Rescued Film Project appealing to a diverse audience from the very personal to the socially important, and wonder where this find would sit within that spectrum.

[Chris Kern]

it could be interesting to discuss the value and value to whom for such photographs. Do they reach beyond being personal mementos to being of true historical documentary value? Do their photographic qualities compare well with those of the established documentary photographs now in archives covering the great wars?

The guy behind The Rescued Film Project—a Google search identified him as Boise, Idaho, photographer Levi Bettwieser—has created an online archive of all the film he scanned from the World War II collection.  Most of the frames don't qualify as particularly striking images, per se, but they might well be useful to historians if the subjects and locations could be identified.  However, I get the impression from the project website and Facebook page that most of the donated film consists of family photographs.

[AFairley]

I was surprised to see that he didn't snip the first frame (or so) from the roll to check how the film responded to development or even develop by inspection (though I don't know if the latter would be a useful technique for dealing with out of date emulsions). 

(I'm old enough to remember giving rolls of Ektachrome to the lab and asking them to snip and process the first couple frames off the first roll and then giving push/pull instructions for the rest of the batch after checking the processed test frames.)

[bill t.]

Those are interesting photos and show us how snapshots of usually ignored subjects gain value over time against the much more common "summation" pictures that ignore now poorly documented things that photographers then thought were too trivial to record.

If I am absolutely without energy, I sometimes like to browse the old snapshots on ebay.  Some of it is very engaging.  Body language, choice of subject, dress, expressions, the way people touched each other, so many things are strangely different.  Even light seems different.  The main sense I get from all those old photos is that they belong to an alternate universe that could not possibly arrive at where we are today.

Thanks AFarley for the snip test suggestion.  I have some old "wound in" Kodachrome rolls from the 60's that were probably exposed.  Maybe I'll take some clips and try the B&W route.  Would be very cathartic loading those old Nikor reels again!

[mcbroomf]

I was surprised to see that he didn't snip the first frame (or so) from the roll to check how the film responded to development or even develop by inspection (though I don't know if the latter would be a useful technique for dealing with out of date emulsions). 

(I'm old enough to remember giving rolls of Ektachrome to the lab and asking them to snip and process the first couple frames off the first roll and then giving push/pull instructions for the rest of the batch after checking the processed test frames.)

I was a little surprised at this, and in fact a little shocked to see 3 films in the tank.  It was a short movie though and it's possible that he did some checks ahead of time that weren't shown to give him confidence in his develop process.