Abillofdivorcement

• Publicity photograph for the film A Bill of Divorcement (1932), featuring its stars Katharine Hepburn and David Manners.
• Such images were taken on set during filming, or as part of an organized photo-shoot, by a studio photographer. They were then disseminated to the media and the public to promote the film (see Film still).
• This is definitely a film still rather than a screenshot, as the quality is too high (compare, for instance, with this screenshot from the film). A stock code can also be seen in the right hand corner.

Public domain explanation

• This photograph does not appear to contain the copyright symbol ©, the word "Copyright", or the abbreviation "Copr.", as then required for copyright.
• If one looks at other film stills from A Bill of Divorcement where a stock code can be clearly seen, none of these include a copyright notice: [1], [2]
• By publishing a photograph without such a notice, under the terms of the 1909 Copyright Act (which was law until 1978) the image went into the public domain.
• If there is any chance that the photograph was copyrighted, under the terms of the 1909 Copyright Act it would have had to be renewed 28 years after publication. A search for copyright renewal records of 1960 ([3], [4]) reveal no trace that this occurred.

Film industry author Gerald Mast has written:

"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 ... 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." (Film Study and the Copyright Law (1989) p. 87.)