Who Owns the Copyright to Vivian Maier's Photographs?

January 24, 2015 3:48 PM

John Maloof and Charlie Siskel’s Finding Vivian Maier is nominated for an Academy Award, Best Feature Documentary. Most people have read about the nanny who worked in complete obscurity, yet may be one of the greatest street photographers of the 20th Century. The filmmakers tell the story of her art and also track down people who knew this eccentric and perhaps troubled artist. Meanwhile, and problematically for Maloof and other owners of Maier’s work, it’s one thing to own the negatives and quite another to own copyright that allows for printing and publishing those negatives. Maloof thought he had that covered, but in 2013 that came into question. Finally and most recently (2015), perhaps sensing an opportunity for much-needed revenue, the State of Illinois has belatedly opened a file on the Maier Estate and notified owners and galleries to be prepared for legal inquiry. The documentary is streaming on the major distributors (Netflix, Amazon, GooglePlay).
posted by Short Attention Sp (22 comments total)

Fanfare thread.
posted by Catblack at 3:52 PM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

The value of Maier's work is exactly what the market paid for it the first time. The capital gains are all a result of the work done by the people who spent their time combing through many similar hords of stuff people left behind, and took countless hours preserving and curating the photos after that point. This is a work of love, with respect and integrity on the part of the current caretakers (as near as I can tell)

Illinois doesn't deserve any more than the normal income taxes out of this, they certainly don't deserve to own the copyright.
posted by MikeWarot at 4:09 PM on January 24, 2015 [9 favorites]

Vivian Maier’s Photographs Are Stunning. But the Oscar-Nominated Movie About Her Is a Mess.

Vivian Maier deserves a far better documentary than Finding Vivian Maier—and, I suspected by movie’s end, a better custodian for her work than Maloof, who often seems as invested in crowing over his luck at stumbling onto this stash of images as he is in understanding the art of those images, or the complex and troubling life of the woman who created them.

posted by octothorpe at 4:11 PM on January 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

The beginning was terrible. I wanted to throttle that kid. It did get better and it's a fascinating story. Turns out I know one of the kids she cared for.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 4:26 PM on January 24, 2015

Would love to see an Errol Morris documentary on this.

To be fair, I would love to see Errol Morris documentaries on everything and anything.
posted by dogwalker at 4:35 PM on January 24, 2015 [4 favorites]

I can imagine her sitting in her attic room with her newly developed prints, arranging them this way and that, this group here and that there, and being happy. Well, as close as she may ever have come to happy. I'm not altogether sure we were ever supposed to have seen these. But I'm glad we did...
posted by jim in austin at 4:54 PM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

That Slate review is garbage.

Maier’s magnificent photographs were already being widely seen and appreciated, on Slate and elsewhere...It seemed churlish to turn potential audiences away from a film about a brilliant and near-forgotten artist...

...Maier herself would likely have hated to have her work and life exposed to public scrutiny in this way, and the filmmaker briefly wrestles with the privacy issues his appropriation of her raises, but he lets himself off the hook far too easily.

I should be thankful that Finding Vivian Maier’s Oscar nomination will encourage more viewers to explore these wonderful photographs, with their painterly use of light and shadow, effortlessly artful compositions, and uncanny observation of urban social reality in all its beauty, ugliness, and manifold mystery.

You can see her beautiful work here, on our website...I want people to see it... but the guy that made her work available to the public should be ashamed of himself for invading her privacy...even though I'm glad he invaded her privacy and I'm glad the Oscar nod will lead more people to invade said privacy.

Ugh. If the state of Illinois was responsible for cleaning up her stuff they would have tossed it all in a landfill. At the very least he saved her work from obscurity.

I can't help but wonder if the author is friends with one of the two other Chicago-based collectors (who "discovered" Maier's work rather than "stumbled" upon it).
posted by The Hamms Bear at 4:56 PM on January 24, 2015 [4 favorites]

The value of Maier's work is exactly what the market paid for it the first time. The capital gains are all a result of the work done by the people who spent their time combing through many similar hords of stuff people left behind, and took countless hours preserving and curating the photos after that point. This is a work of love, with respect and integrity on the part of the current caretakers

I could not agree less.
posted by phaedon at 5:00 PM on January 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

The worst part of all of this is that there is a possibility that no one will get to see some (or perhaps eventually all) of Maier's work until the lawyers are all through with their battles, which might not happen in our lifetime.

I'm grateful that I downloaded (and paid for) Maloof's movie. Whatever its flaws, and whatever his, I got to see some of Maier's photographs. Eventually, the lawyers might pull that, too.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 5:04 PM on January 24, 2015

The real question here is "why is American copyright law so broken that these are not in the public domain?"
posted by mhoye at 5:06 PM on January 24, 2015 [16 favorites]

The documentary is streaming on the major distributors (Netflix, Amazon, GooglePlay).

Not on Netflix streaming quite yet. But I can stream The interview, so I lose twice over!
posted by Going To Maine at 5:07 PM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is why we can't have nice things.
posted by slater at 5:21 PM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

This made me wonder how things played out with Henry Darger's work, which seemed like a similar situation since he was also in Chicago, but in his case his works were discovered and his estate seems to have been put in order shortly before he died.
posted by lagomorphius at 6:37 PM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

When I said her work was what was paid for it, I'm talking tax value... not intrinsic artistic worth (which is always in the eye of the curator/audience).
posted by MikeWarot at 8:19 PM on January 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

In the Fanfare thread I linked to a BBC episode about Vivian Maier. Last I checked that link was dead, but if you can find it elsewhere it is worth watching. It lacks the flashy bits of transition that are in Finding Vivian Maier, but I think it offers a better overview of her life. Of special interest is her time in New York as a young adult, when she seemed to first become ambitious in her photography. I am able to imagine that she had real hopes then to become a professional, but never found the opportunity or contacts, or maybe the true belief that she could do it. It happens to great numbers of people who have artistic dreams. Maybe the trip around the world was inspired by someone like Margaret Bourke-White at a time when magazines like Life and Look were part of the cultural fabric. Even though people admire the artistic quality of her photos, the idea of her perhaps attempting to live an artistic life is lost to the story of the eccentric hoarding nanny, qualities that may not have dominated her life until her 50's, when her employment and living arrangements became less secure.
posted by TimTypeZed at 8:34 PM on January 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

This made me wonder how things played out with Henry Darger's work...

For those unfamilair with Darger's work, I highly recommend the 2004 documentary In The Realms Of The Unreal by Jessica Yu.
posted by fairmettle at 5:34 AM on January 25, 2015 [4 favorites]

The BBC documentary is available on amazon; I watched it last night. I have Maloof's in line for today.
posted by marguerite at 7:40 AM on January 25, 2015

TimTypeZed - thank you very much for posting the link to that documentary.
I thought it was excellent, much better than the Oscar nominated one.
Like you say it is a better overview of her life.
posted by debord at 7:46 AM on January 25, 2015

I'm talking tax value... not intrinsic artistic worth (which is always in the eye of the curator/audience).

This is where it gets interesting. Maloof, et al, have reasons to make sure there is interest in Maier's photographs and increase the sale value. Who could blame them? What concerns me is the contradiction that they are curating the work. If Maier's work is important, *really* important as everyone seems to be saying it is, then every single frame from every single roll should be made public; warts and all.

As for the copyright: Maier is dead so the copyright should expire. This goes for all artists everywhere forevermore IMO, and i say that as a photographer who is X years deep into several projects. Maloof, et al, can make and sell prints and books and exhibitions - no problem. But copyright? No, that ship should sail.
posted by lawrencium at 9:07 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

What I like about the story as it comes across as someone straight out of law school causing trouble, "I know the law now, GRRRR!" Granted, that person is a photographer who claimed to have had their own copyright violated. Then double granted, the first thing he does is make the heir he finds his client. Is it pro bono work? That would be a worthwhile question answered, as otherwise, it sounds like he's trying to make some money off his principled argument.

One might also wonder, are items that are forfeited to a storage company for lack of payment considered abandoned? Does the abandonment extend to the photographs taken or just the physical negatives?

In the end, though, Vivian Maier is deceased. She had no children. No one has come forward to actually claim the photos without prompting by others (that one heir mentioned above). I think the images should either go into the public domain or let those two guys sell the prints from the negatives they acquired legally.
posted by Atreides at 11:49 AM on February 5, 2015

My post was deleted. I think that there is new information here.
posted by zerobyproxy at 8:48 AM on February 9, 2015

Your post, which I read before it got deleted, actually prompted me to come post here. Thanks for the abortive sharing!
posted by Atreides at 11:10 AM on February 9, 2015 [1 favorite]