The JAWS shark is public domain

https://ironicsans.ghost.io/how-the-jaws-shark-became-public-domain/

by MBCook • 1 year ago

150 31 1 year ago

ironicsans.ghost.io

finnh• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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.

t-writescode• 1 year ago

Knowing several creatives, it's definitely not less porny or horny, it's just differently horny and porny.

Fetish content is *RAMPANT* when you know the techniques that are being used, for example. Edging is *very*, *very* popular in clickbait content, for example.

Spivak• 1 year ago

This is just how the horror genre works. Big fantastical monster or supernatural horrors but meant to be connected to real life fears.

The classic haunted house trope where the family sinks all their money into a house and father gets slowly possessed by a demon is meant to evoke the fear of financial troubles causing your partner to become abusive.

The Xenomorphs in Alien are meant to evoke the fear of rape and child birth.

Unsuspecting woman alone in a vulnerable situation attacked by a vicious creature— I can see why they thought the penis angle fit better.

thaumasiotes2• 1 year ago

There are piles of analogies between sex and aggression (the Latin word for “sheath” is vagina).

Well, you're right about the Latin meaning of vagina. How does that illustrate the existence of analogies between sex and aggression?

emmelaich2• 1 year ago

Sheaths also sheath swords.

Relatedly, the slang (or 'real') word for penis is/was weapon in old English.

Reason077• 1 year ago

”… Kastel realized that there was something fishy about the painting’s copyright situation.”

I see what you did there.

ironicsans• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

I see what you did there :)

lelanthran• 1 year ago

Not to worry, I was still hooked.

bredren2• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

The biggest is probably "Charade" with Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn and Walter Matthau.

duskwuff• 1 year ago

Funny - the first one that comes to mind for me is "Night of the Living Dead" (1968).

karaterobot• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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.

tanewishly2• 1 year ago

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.

shakna• 1 year ago

I assume that's why copyright in so many places outside the US only allow a company to license it from the creator. Copyright cannot always be surrendered.

nocoiner• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

Interactive Jaws poster from Back to the Future is here, just click on it -> https://floor796.com/#b3l3,84,583

enjeyw• 1 year ago

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?

toast0• 1 year ago

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?

Sure, someone else could make a similar painting, but mostly people didn't; they just copied his painting (or copied a photo of his painting, whatevs)

hnburnsy• 1 year ago

Final Jeopardy June 16, 2025...

In 1974 Allison Maher Stern posed horizontally on stools & pretended to swim for a cover of this book

qingcharles• 1 year ago

There's a reasonable chance someone has the painting on their wall. I know people in Hollywood who have some incredible items on displays they only show to trusted friends.

There was a time when Universal and others would put the primary hero props from their movies straight into their prop warehouses to get rental income from them for other productions. Some clever chap realized there was only a $300 damage/loss fee on each item, and word spread throughout the production personnel in Hollywood. Lots of irreplaceable props were suddenly "stolen" from productions.

I was involved in tracking one down to return to Universal (now in a museum) and the guy who had it made a fatal mistake of boasting about it one time in a forum. He wouldn't give it up, even with a letter from their lawyers, but we realized the writer of the movie lived nearby, so we had him go knock on the guy's door and it was handed over then.

I don't know what the value of the original painting would be. I got to see the BTTF posters before the painter, Drew Struzan, shipped them out to the buyer. I was surprised how cheap they were, I think he sold the three of them for $90K/piece. Mary Steenburgen was glued onto the third poster since they cast her late, after the painting was finished.

emmelaich2• 1 year ago

Was Mary Steenburgen in Back To The Future? Oh, never mind you mean BTTF3.

derwiki• 1 year ago

“It belongs in a museum!”

j1elo• 1 year ago

He went to the Museum of Natural History to study sharks...

At last, one person who did his homework!

That's what I thought after seeing the first image, the "vagina with teeth" which in my eyes just look like a weird woman's mouth with just some teeth added around... what a terrible work, probably the authour hadn't seen a shark in his life? nor he researched then even a bit, to get some references.

The JAWS shark is public domain

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