Image: J. D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye portrait)

Description: Portrait of American author J. D. Salinger photographed by Lotte at Atelier Jacobi in New York City, October 11, 1950 (source: Fine Books & Collections). The photo was used as an author portrait on the first-edition dust jacket of Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye. It was removed from subsequent editions of the novel at the author's request. Note that the photo was flipped horizontally when it was published on the back cover. That means the back cover actually presented a mirror image of Salinger, not his true appearance; this image is the "unflipped" correct version. Other recently published photos from the same session show that Salinger had several freckles or moles on his face (the most noticeable is on his right cheek, close to his nostril.) These appear to have been airbrushed from the back cover version of the portrait, but note that they are also missing from the "original" copy; every other photo from these sessions shows them.
Title: J. D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye portrait)
Credit: *Original source: first published as part of the full dust jacket art for The Catcher in the Rye (see "other versions" below). The high-resolution photo portrait is sourced from Medium. Cropped and retouched by the uploader.
Author: Photo by Lotte Jacobi, per a credit in the bottom-left corner of the original dust jacket's back cover. Published by Little, Brown and Company
Permission: No permission is required because the portion of the photo shown in this file is in the public domain. The portrait was first published prior to 1978 without a valid copyright notice. The Catcher in the Rye was first published in 1951; the hardcover book itself carried a copyright notice, so its contents remain copyrighted. However, the first-edition dust jacket did not carry a separate copyright notice. 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 "1951" nor a copyright symbol (or any acceptable variant) appear anywhere on the dust jacket. Credits like "Photo by Lotte Jacobi" do not meet these requirements, nor do the identifications of the publisher and author. Additionally, the image is a mechanical scan/photocopy of the public-domain original photo and does not qualify for independent copyright protection. A cropped portion of Jacobi's photo was published as the back cover of the first-edition The Catcher in the Rye. The full photo portrait was published sometime later, showing more of Salinger's body and a more extensive background. It is unclear whether the act of publishing the cropped portion without a notice also rendered the "uncropped" portions of the photo in the public domain; a similar issue exists with Guerrillero Heroico, the famous portrait of Che Guevara. Out of an abundance of caution, this file reproduces only the cropped portion that had been published on the back cover, not the full portrait. The original portrait is considered "published" to at least the same extent that it was "disclosed" by the publication of the dust jacket (in this case, the cropped portion was disclosed). See Shoptalk, Ltd. v. Concorde-New Horizons Corp., 168 F.3d 586, 591 (2d Cir. 1999): "[W]hen the author consents to the inclusion of [her] work in a derivative work, the publication of the derivative work, to the extent . . . it discloses the original work, also constitutes publication of [the] underlying work."
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No