Image: Harold Bloom (Agon portrait)

Description: American literary critic Harold Bloom in the early 1980s.
Title: Harold Bloom (Agon portrait)
Credit: Scanned from a first-edition dust jacket of Bloom's book Agon: Towards a Theory of Revisionism, published by Oxford University Press in New York. Copy of the book retrieved from the San Francisco Public Library. Retouched by uploader; original unretouched scan in upload history below.
Author: Photo by Jeanne Bloom (Harold's wife).
Permission: No permission is required for two reasons: First, the photo is a mechanical scan/photocopy of the original cover and does not qualify for independent copyright protection. Second, the dust jacket was published without a notice between 1978 and 1989 and was not registered for copyright within five years. The book's dust jacket did not carry a copyright notice. A search of the US Copyright Office's Copyright Catalog (1978 to present) turns up no results for the dust jacket design (which would be considered distinct from the book itself, since the dust jacket was removable) or the portrait photograph. According to The Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices: Chapter 2200, § 2207.1(C) at p. 15: "A notice of copyright on the dust jacket of a book is not an acceptable notice for the book, because the dust jacket is not permanently attached to the book. Likewise, a notice appearing in a book is not an acceptable notice for the dust jacket or any material appearing on that dust jacket, even if the book refers to the jacket or material appearing on the jacket.". Keep in mind that the pre-1989 requirements for copyright notice were highly formalistic and, other than a few enumerated exceptions, required these three elements: "The symbol © or the word 'Copyright' or the abbreviation 'Copr.' or an acceptable variant such as "(c)"; "The year of first publication for the work"; and "The name of the copyright owner, or an abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a generally known alternative designation of the owner." If just one of these elements is omitted, the work is deemed to be published without notice and is not eligible for copyright protection. Neither the year nor a copyright symbol (or any acceptable variant) appear anywhere on the dust jacket. Credits like "Jacket design by..." do not meet the requirements, nor do the identifications of the publisher, author, portrait photographer, etc.
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No