"Ansel Adams" plates found at garage sale

[tgtaylor]

IF he can get someone to authenticate the negs, they have value far beyond the money he paid for them. It is within his right to sell them as Ansel Adam's negs just as it is your right to resell a print by Ansel that you own. .. To an Adams collecter it is a rare opportunity, even though we know that it is the print that is important, the negs have a real value...

The Ansel Adams Trust has a trademark on his name. That means that no one besides the trust can profit from it. Even if these negs we are talking about are Ansel's, Norsigian has no right to use Ansel's name to produce any products beyond what he owns. That means he can not profit from the sale of prints from the negs in Adam's name, because he does not have the right to do that. The right to do that is owned by the Adam's trust. To put this plainly, do I have the right to photocopy the front of a Kellogg's Corn Flakes box, because I bought it at the supermarket, and put the photocopy on my own box of cereal and sell thousands? Of course I don't. I do have the right to resell the box of cereal though. There is no difference between these two scenarios.

Playing Norsigian's counsel I'd point out that, unlike the Corn Flakes Box senario, the sole purpose of a negative is to make a print from it and that Norsigian is not representing that Ansel made, or is making, the prints from those negatives and clearly sets out in the advertising that the actual prints are being made by another photographer/printer.

[cowanw]

Playing Norsigian's counsel I'd point out that, unlike the Corn Flakes Box senario, the sole purpose of a negative is to make a print from it and that Norsigian is not representing that Ansel made, or is making, the prints from those negatives and clearly sets out in the advertising that the actual prints are being made by another photographer/printer.

This is what I was trying to say in post 159 in that it is derivative work and THAT has been clearly permitted in the past.
Regards
Bill

[ic-racer]

I think the title of this thread should be changed. The only relationship between the glass negatives under discussion and Ansel Adams is the potiential for litigation. Otherwise Ansel Adams has nothing to do with those glass plates.

[Brian C. Miller]

Right, "Ansel Adams photos (not) found at garage sale"

[David Karp]

I think the title of this thread should be changed. The only relationship between the glass negatives under discussion and Ansel Adams is the potiential for litigation. Otherwise Ansel Adams has nothing to do with those glass plates.

Actually, I think that this thread was originally entitled "Interesting Article in LA Times." I think that it was edited after I started it. You can see the original title on the posts right after the first post.

[QT Luong]

David is correct. As I merged several threads related to this subject into this one, it inherited the "Ansel Adams Photos found at garage sale" wording from one of the merged threads. I've just changed it (slightly) for accuracy.

[tgtaylor]

Playing Norsigian's counsel I'd point out that, unlike the Corn Flakes Box senario, the sole purpose of a negative is to make a print from it and that Norsigian is not representing that Ansel made, or is making, the prints from those negatives and clearly sets out in the advertising that the actual prints are being made by another photographer/printer.

Again, playing the role of Norsigian's defense counsel, I'd further point out that the best that could be said about the negatives, assuming that they are in fact Ansel's, is that they were abandoned by him 80 or more years ago!

Now that's what I call a coup de grace.

[Sirius Glass]

It does not even matter whether or not Ansel Adams took the photographs. All the foundation has to do is stop any of the photographs from being sold. The game is already over.

Steve

[tgtaylor]

Again, playing the role of Norsigian's defense counsel, I'd further point out that the best that could be said about the negatives, assuming that they are in fact Ansel's, is that they were abandoned by him 80 or more years ago!

Now that's what I call a coup de grace.

Looks like the plaintiff doesn't have a defense on this forum.

WHEREFORE defendant files the above as Affirmative Defense and moves the court for a Summary Judgement on the pleadings herein.

[Alan Curtis]

Has anyone seen a print produced from any of the negatives? I can't believe that any print made from a 80+year old glass negative stored in a box in the garage isn't going to have a world of blemishes, that the best retoucher in the world could fix.
By the way you can buy a very nice print of one of AA negatives (printed by Alan Ross) for about $200 from AA galleries in Yosemite.