File:Studio publicity Una Merkel.jpg

Quest'opera è nel pubblico dominio in quanto pubblicata negli Stati uniti tra il 1930 e il 1963 con un avviso di copyright, ma il copyright non è stato poi rinnovato. A meno che l'autore non sia deceduto da diversi anni, è protetta da copyright nei Paesi o nelle aree in cui non si applica la regola della durata più breve per le opere statunitensi, come Canada (70 pma), Cina (50 pma, non Hong Kong o Macao), Germania (70 pma), Messico (100 pma), Svizzera (70 pma) e altri Paesi con trattati individuali. Vedi Commons:Hirtle chart per ulteriori approfondimenti. العربية ∙ Deutsch ∙ English ∙ español ∙ français ∙ galego ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ 한국어 ∙ македонски ∙ português ∙ português do Brasil ∙ русский ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenščina ∙ українська ∙ 简体中文 ∙ 繁體中文 ∙ +/−

Nancy Wolff, includes a similar explanation:

"There is a vast body of photographs, including but not limited to publicity stills, that have no notice as to who may have created them." (The Professional Photographer's Legal Handbook By Nancy E. Wolff, Allworth Communications, 2007, p. 55.)

Film industry author Gerald Mast, in Film Study and the Copyright Law (1989) p. 87, writes:

"According to the old copyright act, such production stills were not automatically copyrighted as part of the film and required separate copyrights as photographic stills. The new copyright act similarly excludes the production still from automatic copyright but gives the film's copyright owner a five-year period in which to copyright the stills. Most studios have never bothered to copyright these stills because they were happy to see them pass into the public domain, to be used by as many people in as many publications as possible."