Fred and Adele

[andyg0404]

Hi,

A long time ago I picked up a biography of Fred Astaire which had a wonderful picture of he and his sister Adele as children dressed up for a play. Fred played the girl's part and Adele the boy. I've been too lazy to scan it and was surprised I never found it on the Internet but I just came across it at Getty of all places.

http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/studio-portrait-of-brother-and-sister-singing-and-dancing-partners-picture-id3240930

Andy G.

[Betty]

Nice find! Yeah. I get a kick out of these internet, media, & copyright companies that didn't exist 10 or 20 years ago suddenly coming out of the woodwork, claiming copyrights of materials made 50 or hundreds of years ago, then slapping their name on it.

I could understand if someone repaired, restored, modified, or edit something, claiming credit for their work, or if it was a collection from your own family's estate, but to just gather up any old stuff, then slap your sticker on it or put your banner right over it, should be criminal.

I'm sure they have legitimate clients & photographers too, but all too often I see stuff that they literally stole from other sites or free archives, then slapped a price tag & their name on them.

[barbrainwny]

Here is one I picked up off the web several years ago.

[Betty]

So how does Ghetty claim rights to something that was made long before anybody at their company was born? That would be like me burning a CD of an old record, selling it, & then claiming rights to the recording. I may have made the best, cleanest digital copy of the old recording, but that doesn't give me the copyright, or exclusive rights to the old recording. I may own rights to the process  or software to copy, enhance, restore, & digitize the recording, but cannot own the recording itself because it wasn't mine in the first place. And if nobody owns rights to it anymore, I can't suddenly claim ownership to it just because I copied & re-distributed it.