[HN Gopher] The JAWS shark is public domain
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The JAWS shark is public domain
Author : MBCook
Score : 104 points
Date : 2025-06-20 19:28 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ironicsans.ghost.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (ironicsans.ghost.io)
| finnh wrote:
| > He went to the Museum of Natural History to study sharks, and
| he had a model pose across a couple of stools for reference of
| what someone looks like swimming.
|
| That explains why the swimmer, at least, looks a bit fake.
| cjcenizal wrote:
| What a great story. Going from "it's a vagina with teeth, that's
| bad" to "it's a penis with teeth, that's good" made me chuckle...
| just sounds so typical of creatives.
|
| Some might point and say sexism, but I think it's consistent with
| established tropes. There are piles of analogies between sex and
| aggression (the Latin word for "sheath" is vagina). An image of a
| penis-like shark attacking a nude woman is another to throw on
| the pile.
| echelon wrote:
| The creatives of that time were so sex-minded. There were
| countless references to Freud and Kafka, HR Giger designed
| monsters after anatomy and fertility. Sex in general seemed to
| be on the tip of the tongue of so many authors, writers, and
| directors of that pre-internet era.
|
| Accessible internet probably took the wind out of their sails.
| Media has become less porny over time, and the younger
| generations have even expressed an aversion to it.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _"... Kastel realized that there was something fishy about the
| painting's copyright situation."_
|
| I see what you did there.
| ironicsans wrote:
| My first draft had a lot more fish puns. I decided they were a
| distraction so I cut most of them. A few still slipped through
| the net.
| j-bos wrote:
| I see what you did there :)
| genghisjahn wrote:
| Wow! Thats quite a catch!
| bredren wrote:
| tldr; the famous art from the Jaws movie poster was originally a
| book cover. When first published it lacked the required
| attribution of the time to get enforceable copyright.
|
| IIRC, there are some films in public domain for having "failed"
| to do this as well.
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| The biggest is probably "Charade" with Cary Grant, Audrey
| Hepburn and Walter Matthau.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > an artist should be able to enjoy the fruits of his work in his
| lifetime if he wants to
|
| Not if you're an illustrator doing work for hire. It's not
| unreasonable or unusual for the company who commissioned the art
| to own the copyright. It doesn't always work that way, but
| there's no reason to think Kastel was robbed without us knowing
| the actual terms of his contract with Universal. I assume he sold
| the copyright to Universal, and Universal fumbled the copyright
| after that, but that doesn't mean it reverts back to Kastel.
| jfengel wrote:
| As I understand it, problem wasn't Universal. It was that the
| publisher didn't put his name on the copyright page, so the art
| became public domain under the laws at the time.
|
| That law has been replaced and you now get copyright
| automatically.
| tanewishly wrote:
| That was my takeaway as well. The weird thing is: since it's
| someone else doing the initial publication, their omission of
| copyright credits is costing the artist their copyright.
| That's... unexpected. I don't know how things worked back
| then in book art, but if the artist wasn't contracted as
| work-for-hire, protecting their copyright ought to become the
| burden of those who actually made the art public. I don't
| know if this argument was put forth in appeals, but
| ruling+motivation on this point from the appeals committees
| are absent from the story.
|
| Sounds like you could accidentally make someone else's art
| public domain by forgetting to include them on the copyright
| page...
|
| _edit_ well, perhaps that 's part of the reason the
| copyright laws were updated.
| nocoiner wrote:
| God, I love pre-1976 copyright. So many formalities and
| intricacies. I'm kind of amazed that there's so much from that
| era that remains in copyright.
| horpia wrote:
| Interactive Jaws poster from Back to the Future is here, just
| click on it -> https://floor796.com/#b3l3,84,583
| enjeyw wrote:
| It feels to me that even ignoring copyright law, Kastel has a
| limited claim to the credit here.
|
| Art director Alex Gotfryd came up with the concept of the Shark
| and the Swimmer, while Paul Bacon did the original drawing.
|
| At this point what's to distinguish Kastel's painting of a shark
| and a swimmer from anyone else making a painting of a shark and a
| swimmer?
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(page generated 2025-06-20 23:00 UTC)