Don’t shit on our Canadian neighbors, either, eh? Windsor is pretty nice.
That’s true today. That was not true in 1949. At that time, copyright had to be registered. It wasn’t automatic like it is today. Also, as another commenter pointed out, then and today, if a work is done on a for hire basis, the copyright belongs to the person who commissioned the work, and not to the artist. So, if the publisher of that book commissioned this artist to draw that illustration specifically for this book, then the copyright probably belongs to the publisher, and not the artist. All of these questions will be asked and answered if this ever goes to trial. Which I doubt. Nirvana will probably settle, because it will be cheaper than a trial.
Not to shit on Detroit, but I have to shit on some place.
I also pretty much destroyed my life by not moving to Detroit, but that’s a story for another time.
Mar-A-Lago or Trump Tower could be perfectly acceptable choices, IMHO. 
Any building with with a Trump inside deserves it far more, frankly… or 10 Downing Street with it’s current occupant, if we need to go international.
Works made for hire are slightly more complicated than this. A work specially commissioned is only a work made for hire if the contract specifically states that fact. Otherwise the person (or company) that commissioned it has a non-exclusive license to use it. A work done by a regular employee as part of their duties as an employee is automatically a work made for hire(in the US).*
Traditionally, many have believed that there is an “academic exemption,” to the latter rule meaning that papers written by academics are not covered by the WMFH rules, but does not seem to have any basis in statute. So my suspicion is that copyright assignments made by academic authors are irrelevant (in the US)
Of course the “national treatment” rule under Berne can lead to some real questions. For example, “works of the United States government,” are not eligible for copyright protection under US law. Of course other governments insist that their government works should be covered by copyright within the US. And the US sometimes claims that its works should be covered by copyright in foreign countries. So you sometimes see statements like “Copyright yyyy U.S. Government. No copyright claimed under 17 USC.” Edited to add: I believe that is driven at least in part by Dutch law. It is my understanding that it grants copyright protection to government works only if there is a copyright statement explicitly stating that fact.
*edited to add The above paragraph applies to works since 1978. My understanding is that before the 1976 act came into effect WMFs were a matter of case law rather than statute, so your mileage might vary A LOT.
Thank you for the more complete explanation. I know just enough about copyright law to be dangerous.
…as do I. I really thought that the Lessig case was going to be a slam dunk ruling that overturned the Copyright Term Extension Act.
don’t “Dis” them?
Yep. Dante pulls no punches.
Not quite. At least as current US copyright law goes, commissioning an art work does not grant you the copyright to it. Work for hire is a term of art in copyright that refers to employees, not to independent artists or companies you commission art from. In those cases you need a written agreement transferring copyright (oral agreements don’t count for copyright transfers).
Seems pretty straightforward:
Is/was the image copyrighted at the time of the alleged violation?
Does this woman have legal status to sue?
Can she prove she holds the copyright if still extant or did hold it?
Did/do the musicians have permission to use a copyrighted image?
(I imagine Nirvana is incorporated one way or another, even groups who despise society have no issue cashing the checks and enforcing their own copyrights.)
Ah yes, several corporations in fact worth close to a half billion dollars at minimum. Grunge pays well it seems.
Only thing I can see causing an issue is the delay in enforcing the claim if the shirts have been around since the 80s.
If you’re going to make money off someone else’s work, do your legal homework first.
Doesn’t even look like they could hide behind a “transformative” claim.
He’s dead? Nevermind.
found the innermost circle of hell
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