Who manages classic pictures - ie the NYC guys eating lunch on the ibeam

[Sonny Forelli]

Iconic American imagery - pictures that everyone sees and recognizes.

Anyone have any clue whether someone like Getty has gobbled up a lot of these or whether they're in the public domain now due to popularity/length of time/etc?

Happy Kwanza

 

[Sonny Forelli]

sorry - IE

 

[cziffra]

Generally, anything published prior to 1923 should be public domain in the US. However, it's possible for some works to be public domain if they were published as late as 1963. It depends on things like whether the work was published with a copyright notice, if the copyright was renewed, etc. You would probably have to do research on each photograph to determine its status. Even if the photograph is public domain, you may not be able to get access to it without paying, unforunately.

You may want to look through the Bettmann Archive at Corbis, which contains a lot of early photographs. You can read about it at THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE. I browsed through the images and it looks like they have some material similar to what you describe. For example, here is a search on the Great Depression with images from around the same time as the image you posted.

 

[Sonny Forelli]

Thanks much