“Images, Copyright, and the Public Domain in the Long Nineteenth Century” is a multi-year project that will begin with a conference at the Winterthur Museum, Garden, & Library (Delaware), March 29-30, 2018.
Download the program : here.
A second meeting was held in Paris on June 20-21, 2019. The program for the second conference is available here.
The project is coordinated by Will Slauter (LARCA) and Marie-Stéphanie Delamaire (Winterthur) and has received generous support from the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, and the Institut universitaire de France.
Why did copyright law protect engraved reproductions but not paintings or sculptures for most of the 19th century? As the industrial revolution made images more readily available than ever before, what rights belonged to their creators, purchasers, or publishers? Was it legal or culturally acceptable to reproduce or transform a picture into other forms? Did individuals have ownership in their own likeness? Was photography responsible for the elaboration of our modern legal framework for artistic authorship?
Join historians of material culture, art, law, and literature for a series of focused talks and debates about the relationship between copyright law and the cultural, economic, and technological factors that transformed the pictorial landscape of the 19th century. Copyright policies had, and continue to have, a profound impact on the creation and circulation of creative works. This Winterthur conference invites you to explore a formative moment in the history of law and the visual arts in America.
WINTERTHUR CONFERENCE
Unless otherwise noted, all lectures are held in the Copeland Lecture Hall in the Visitor Center.
THURSDAY, MARCH 29
8:00 am
Registration and Coffee
8:45 am
Welcome and Introductory Remarks
Stéphanie Delamaire, Associate Curator and Affiliated Assistant Professor in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, Winterthur, and
Will Slauter, Associate Professor, LARCA, Université Paris Diderot
9:00 am
Session 1: The Status of Images and the Boundaries of Copyright
Session Chair: Georgia B. Barnhill, Curator of Graphic Arts Emerita, American Antiquarian Society
The First Copyright Case under the 1735 Engravers’ Act: The Germination of Visual Copyright?
Isabella Alexander, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney, and Cristina S. Martinez, Adjunct Professor, University of Ottawa
Artistic Copyright and Derivative Rights in Nineteenth-Century England
Simon Stern, Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Innovation Law and Policy, University of Toronto
“Photographs and the negatives thereof which shall hereafter be made”
Mazie M. Harris, Assistant Curator, J. Paul Getty Museum
10:30 am
Coffee break
11:00 am
Session 2: Originals and Reproductions: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Session Chair: Anne McCauley, David Hunter McAlpin Professor of the History of Photography and Modern Art, Princeton University
Neither Copy, Nor Original: The Meanings of Illustration in Nineteenth-Century American Print Culture
Christopher J. Lukasik, Associate Professor of English and American Studies, Purdue University
Photography, Stenography, and Copyright for News
Will Slauter, Associate Professor, LARCA, Université Paris Diderot
12:30–2:15 pm
Lunch
2:15 pm
Session 3: Artists, Entrepreneurs, and Publishers
Session Chair: Anne Verplanck, Associate Professor, American Studies and Heritage Studies, Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg
The Frame Maker/Picture Dealer: The Hybrid Entrepreneur of the 19th-Century Popular Print Market
Erika Piola, Associate Curator, Print and Photograph Department, Library Company of Philadelphia
Did Patent Confusion Dim the Ambrotype?
Shannon Perich, Curator of the Photographic History Collection, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
3:00–3:15 pm
Break
3:15 pm
Session 4: Stretching the Print-Based Model of Copyright
Session Chair: Jessica Silbey, Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law
Painting as Intellectual Property in 19th-Century America Stéphanie Delamaire, Associate Curator and Affiliated Assistant Professor in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, Winterthur
Honorable Emulation Versus Dishonorable Appropriation: Copying, Piracy, and Copyright in Late 19th-Century Typography
Michael Knies, Special Collections Librarian and Associate Professor, Weinberg Memorial Library, University of Scranton
Before a Picture Was Worth a Thousand Words: Ben-Hur in Court Oren Bracha, Howrey LLP and Arnold, White & Durkee Centennial Professor, University of Texas School of Law
5:00 pm
Reception
FRIDAY, MARCH 30
8:30 am
Coffee
9:00 am
Session 5: Ownership, Appropriation, and Political Sovereignty
Session Chair: Peter Jaszi, Professor Emeritus of Law, American University
Maps, Borders, and the Image of Geographic Copyright in Early America
Nora Slonimsky, Gardiner Assistant Professor of History, Iona College/Institute for Thomas Paine Studies
Reconsidering Native Indian Design: Angel De Cora’s Book Art and Illustrations
Kathleen Washburn, Assistant Professor of English, University of New Mexico
Protecting the Photograph: New Zealand’s Fine Arts Copyright Act 1877
Jill Haley, Curator of Human History, Canterbury Museum, Christchurch
10:30 am
Coffee break
11:00 am
Session 6: Transnational Publishing and Printed Illustrations
Session Chair: Will Slauter, Associate Professor, LARCA, Université Paris Diderot
Creating a Magazine Worth Buying: Ownership and Attribution of Images and Texts in the Godey’s Lady’s Book, 1830s–1850s Amy Sopcak-Joseph, Ph.D. Candidate,
University of Connecticut
Transculturation in Production Practices and Image Appropriation: Argentina and England, First Half of the Nineteenth Century Sandra M. Szir, Associate Professor, Universidad Nacional de San Martín and University of Buenos Aires, and María Lía Munilla Lacasa, Associate Professor, Universidad de San Andrés
Piracy, Copyright, and the Transnational Trade in Illustrations of the News in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
Thomas Smits, Ph.D. Candidate, Radbound University, Nijmegen
12:30–2:00 pm
Lunch
2:00 pm
Session 7: Privacy, Publicity, and Obscenity
Session Chair: Jason Hill, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Delaware
State v. Charles Conroy: New York Photographers’ Battle for Free Speech in the Tangled Web of Late 19th-Century English and American Law Amy Werbel, Associate Professor of Art History, State University of New York, Fashion Institute of Technology
The Kodak Camera and Privacy v. Copyright: the (Gendered) Fight for Rights in a Photographic Image in Late 19th-Century and Early 20th-Century America
Jessica Lake, Lecturer in Law, Swinburne Law School
3:00–3:15 pm
Afternoon Break
3:15 pm
Session 8: Photographers, the Press, and the Law
Session Chair: Eva E. Subotnik, Associate Professor of Law, St. John’s University School of Law
Photography vs. The Press: Benjamin J. Falk and the Value of Studio Photography in the Halftone Era
Katherine Mintie, Post-doctoral Scholar and Assistant Professor of Art and Art History, DePauw University
Florence Vandamm: Captions, Credits, and the 1911 Copyright Act Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, Rosenberg Curator of Exhibitions (retired), New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
4:15–5:15 pm
Final Discussion
Concluding Round Table with Georgia B. Barnhill, Curator of Graphic Arts Emerita, American Antiquarian Society, Peter Jaszi, Professor Emeritus of Law, American University, and Anne McCauley, David Hunter McAlpin Professor of the History of Photography and Modern Art, Princeton University
5:15 pm
Farewell
