What is the world coming to?

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

Don't miss out on this: co-authored by world-famous vintage photography expert Henry Yee:

A Portrait of Baseball Photography:The Definitive History of our Pastime's Pictures, News Services, and Photographers By Marshall Fogel, Khyber Oser, and Henry Yee

at http://books.mastronet.com

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Posted By: cmoking

you title sounds like you don't like it...what's wrong with the book or the authors?

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Posted By: DJ

Yeah, that heading is way too misleading. I was expecting to see that someonepaid WAY TOO much for something that is worth so little. I managed to duck the Mastro e-mail but clicked above.

My question to David Cycleback, curious, what is the copyright rule on wire photos? Can I purchase a 100 and make a coffee table book of them?

As you can tell, not much of a photo guy.

DJ

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Copyrights to images is too complicated and boring a subject to cover here.

If a board member wanted to make a picture book of 1800s tintypes, he could most likely do so with out any copyright concerns. For modern photos of celebrities by famous photographers or groups, one could gain the rights to use them from the copyrights holder. Many famous photographers, magazines, etc and are involved with big photo distributers. This means an author or publisher can go to one or two companies to gather photos of desired subjects/photographers, rather than contact all the photographers individually. Both the images and rights of use would be gained through these big companies.

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Posted By: joe brennan

David, I have a question for you about a print. could you e-mail me at twodueces22@yahoo.com

"I had the right to remain silent. I just didn't have the ability" Ron White

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Posted By: DJ

David,

Wire Photos, 1930's, 1940's, 1950's? Just curious since do we really know who took those shots?

Bore me.

DJ

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

Thanks for the link. That looks like a good book.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

DJ, the issue is who owns the rights to an image, and if and under what conditions a book publiser can reprint it. A magazine or wire service might own the rights to an particular image, and not the photographer.

One copyright owner (a library for instance) might say "Sounds like a good book. You can use it for free," another might not let you and another might let you if you pay a fee. Some photographs may not have any rights attached so a publisher can use as he wishes. A writer could find many free images at the Library of Congress. So things are often done on a photo by photo basis.

For a book I once wrote I asked a famous photographer if I could use three of his photos, one for the cover, and he said I could. I asked him what was the charge and he said I could use them for free. I later by chance found out what the normal charge for the use of his images (plus, a cover image is a lot more expensive than the same image used inside), and realized how nice he was being ... For the same book, I asked another famous photographer if I could use one of her photos and she basically said, "No way."

It also is relevant how you are reprinting the image. While, without Topps' written permision, you can't make 1982 Topps Traded Cal Ripken T-shirts and sell them from your website, you can probably write an article about the 1982TT set for you local collector's club newsletter and include a picture of Cal's card. At least, Topps would probably have no objection to the use of the card in the article, while they would with you selling the shirts

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Posted By: bcornell

I bought a copy at the National and read through it and the bat book on the flight home. Due to sheer ignorance, I can't comment on whether they're good reference guides, but I'd strongly recommend the Fogel/Oser/Yee book for the terrific deadball era photos and its biographies of photographers like Conlon, Van Oeyen, Thompson, Brace, etc.

Bill

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Posted By: JimB

I knew next to nothing about photographs so the book seemed very informative to me. I also read it on the flight home from the national. Is there something wrong with it?
JimB

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

I was expressing surprise to see such an association (Mastronet/Yee), but I realize now that only the vintage photograph collectors would get it.

I'm sure this is a fantastic book - I wouldn't expect anything published by Mastronet to be anything less.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

the name change from 'Mastronet' to 'Mastronet....Auctions of Distinction'?

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Posted By: RobertS

I, too, picked this up at the National. It should be renamed as a guide to News Service Photos. It does not touch seriously on cabinets, CDVs, tintypes, ambrotypes, etc., etc.

The examples of the different back stamps to news service photos are very helpful (identifying the ages of the respective stamps), and, as Bill said, the bios on the photographers are nice.

However, if you are looking for an overview of baseball photos of all types, you should also pick up one of David Rudd's different self-published books along with Mark Rucker's Base Ball Cartes book.

Also, the writers of the new Mastro book were an interesting choice: Marshall definitely knows vintage baseball and has an amazing collection of photos; Oser was an English Major who knows the language and presumably was responsible for the text; and Henry Yee certainly has handled his share of baseball photos (both originals and later prints as many here know).

However, no first-hand or detailed knowledge of the newspaper business is displayed.

As such, one minor (yet glaring) example of grappling with the subject matter is the repeated reference to the paper captions affixed to news photos as being printed on "brown paper bag" type paper.

Anyone familiar with newsrooms prior to the computer age knows that that paper is referred to as "copy paper." You would type your story on your typewriter and a Copy Boy would then move it along the chain to be edited, laid-out, typeset, etc. (Rip it out of the old typewriter and yell "Copy!" for the Copy Boy to whisk it away). The stuff came in a variety of not-so-pleasant colors like yellow and light brown.

I don't know of any reporters running down to the corner grocery store, grabbing a bag and beginning to type away...

All-in-all, however, the book is definitely worth picking up for the back stamps and photographer photos alone, not to mention a plethora of great baseball images (regardless of whether or not liberties were taken with copyrights).

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Posted By: leon

I think Scott was making reference to the fact that Henry has seemingly embellished some photo descriptions of things he has sold on ebay. I am not a photography person so can't comment on that. I will tell you that I sat right next to Henry Yee at dinner one night and he seems like a nice enough person. He has a pretty cute girlfriend too . I got the book and have read most of it and it has some great photo's and great info in it. It is heartily recommended for anyone that likes vintage baseball. I also smoked a few cigars with Marshall, after the dinner, and he was his normal polite self. As the trifacta I got all 3 of the authors autographs on the book I was given......maybe I should get it slabbed PSA/DNA....but then it would probably come back as fake auto's regards

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

Mastronet often sells vintage photos by the photographers mentioned in this thread, as does Henry Yee. This is just new information to consider prior to bidding.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I know relatively little about the field but I do know that under the doctrine of fair [permissible] use, you can reproduce a copyrighted image in a reference book without payment or releases from the copyright owner. Otherwise, you would never have any reference books created in any artistic field because it would be impossible to secure the rights needed for the work. Heck, you could not even create an auction catalogue if you had to get releases to reproduce all of the images on the cards.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I hope this book doesn't lift my copyrighted and published research and writing on this subject. I published a booklet on news service photos (stamping charts, tags, etc), also available on my website (free to collectors and dealers to read and reference, not to publish in a book under their name) and gave complimentary copies to folks at MastroNet some years ago. No one at MastroNet knew that a UPI photo was modern until the booklet was published (UPI was formed in the 1950s), and had a vogue idea of which stamps showed a photo was old (ACME, International News, for examples). The information in the guide was not available before I published it. If MastroNet and the authors uses a large amount of material from my guide while taking credit for it, that would be an example of copyright infringment.