Summary

DescriptionPress Photo of Fred Rogers (Published by 1982) (cropped).png	English: Press photo of Fred Rogers.
Date	Published by 1982 In "eBay (v1)", the photo caption mentions the program "Mister Rogers Talks with Parents about Discipline" in the future tense. According to the Neighborhood Archive, the program aired on February 28, 1982.
Source	eBay (v1): front. back eBay (v2): front, back eBay (v3): front, back Image source: PopSugar
Author	Terry Arthur (given in "eBay (v1)")
Other versions	This file has been extracted from another file : Press Photo of Fred Rogers (Published by 1982).png

Licensing

The press photo of "eBay (v1)" and "eBay (v2)" do not have a copyright notice.

Does "eBay (v3)" have a valid copyright notice?

Is the year of publication required?

According to The Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices: Chapter 2200 § 2204.1 at p. 4:

In the case of a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, the year of publication may be omitted if the work is reproduced on greeting cards, postcards, stationery, jewelry, dolls, toys, or any useful article.

The U.S. Copyright Office defines useful article as follows:

A “useful article” is an object having an intrinsic utilitar¡an function that is not merely to portray the appearance of the article or to convey information. Examples are clothing, furniture, machinery, dinnerware, and lighting fixtures. An article that is normally part of a useful article may itself be a useful article, for example, an ornamental wheel cover on a vehicle.

The photo in "eBay (v3)" is not reproduced on any such articles. Thus the answer is yes.

What about the date stamped on the back of the photo?

According to The Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices: Chapter 2200 § 2205.1(E) at p. 9:

A year of publication that is separated from the rest of the notice may be acceptable if it is an appropriate date and if it is reasonably identifiable as part of the notice. For example, an appropriate year of publication may be acceptable if it is the only date that appears on the same page as the other elements of the notice.

Likewise, a year of publication that is prominently displayed elsewhere on copies or phonorecords may be acceptable if it is an appropriate date and if it can reasonably be considered part of the notice. For instance, the U.S. Copyright Office may accept a date that appears in the “Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data” or in the year of issue for a periodical, even if the date does not appear on the same page as the rest of the notice.

In those cases where a year is required and no year of publication can be reasonably identified as part of the notice, the Office will consider the work to be published without notice.

The stamp may have been placed without the authorization of the copyright owner and may not have been originally part of the photo when it was distributed. For example, the stamp may have been placed by a librarian to place a check-out date before a patron borrowed it. Thus no year of publication can be reasonably identified as part of the notice. Therefore the work was published without a copyright notice.

Was the photo registered with the U.S. Copyright Office within 5 years?

A search for "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" and "Terry Arthur" (the photographer) in the Copyright Record for 1978 to present yields no relevant results. Thus the answer is no.

This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1978 and March 1, 1989 without a copyright notice, and its copyright was not subsequently registered with the U.S. Copyright Office within 5 years. Unless its author has been dead for several years, it is copyrighted in the countries or areas that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works, such as Canada (50 pma), Mainland China (50 pma, not Hong Kong or Macau), Germany (70 pma), Mexico (100 pma), Switzerland (70 pma), and other countries with individual treaties. See this page for further explanation. Deutsch ∙ English ∙ español ∙ français ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ 한국어 ∙ македонски ∙ português ∙ português do Brasil ∙ русский ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenščina ∙ 中文 ∙ 中文（简体） ∙ 中文（繁體） ∙ 中文（臺灣） ∙ +/−