This is a standard publicity photo taken to promote a film role. As stated by film production expert Eve Light Honthaner in The Complete Film Production Handbook, (Focal Press, 2001 p. 211.):
"Publicity photos (star headshots) have traditionally not been copyrighted. Since they are disseminated to the public, they are generally considered public domain, and therefore clearance by the studio that produced them is not necessary."
Nancy Wolff, includes a similar explanation:
"There is a vast body of photographs, including but not limited to publicity stills, that have no notice as to who may have created them." (The Professional Photographer's Legal Handbook By Nancy E. Wolff, Allworth Communications, 2007, p. 55.)--Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 09:35, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Film industry author Gerald Mast, in Film Study and the Copyright Law (1989) p. 87, writes:
"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. The new copyright act similarly excludes the production still from automatic copyright but gives the film's copyright owner a five-year period in which to copyright the 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."
Note that it may still be copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works (depending on the date of the author's death), such as Canada (70 years p.m.a.), Mainland China (50 years p.m.a., not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 years p.m.a.), Mexico (100 years p.m.a.), Switzerland (70 years p.m.a.), and other countries with individual treaties.
The original description page was here. All following user names refer to en.wikipedia.
2010-08-16 07:08 Wikiwatcher1 1666×2086× (522914 bytes) {{Information |Description = Studio portrait of Betty Hutton; publicity photo for film ''Annie Get Your Gun'' (1950) |Source = [http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Hutton,%20Betty/Annex/Annex%20-%20Hutton,%20Betty%20#Annie%20Get%20Your%20
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{{Information |Description={{en|Studio portrait of Betty Hutton; publicity photo for film ''Annie Get Your Gun'' (1950)<br/>}} |Source=Transferred from [http://en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia]<br/>(Original text : ''[http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Hutton
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