Muses, I'm afraid I don't understand Randy's point. As far as I can tell, neither version of the bill has any effect on the copyright status of any object. They seem to simply say that if a user has made an attempt to determine the copyright owner of a work that is, in fact, copyrighted and fails and subsequently infringes on that copyright, the copyright holder, when he comes forward and makes his claim known, is entitled only to the amount of money that he would have gotten if the two of them had made a normal deal before the infringement (and not the monetary penalties provided for in the various copyright laws). In any event, as far as I can tell, the Senate bill has been passed and sent to the House where it is awaiting a committee (probably subcommittee) hearing, the House bill is awaiting a hearing in committee, and so there is no such law yet. Assuming all the photographs in this collection on the Web were originally taken before 1978, then the real question becomes what constitutes 'publishing' a photograph under the old law. It's fairly clear that under that law all copies of a published copyrighted work had to carry a copyright notice (I'm assuming here that none of the photographs in question carry such a notice). So, were they 'published'? If my great-grandfather went to the local photographer, had his picture taken, and bought a dozen cabinet cards would the photo be published? OK, what about the photograph of the town mayor that the same photographer made a dozen copies of and offered for sale to the general public? I have not been able to find any court decision, at any level, that ruled on such a question. I would be delighted if anyone could provide a reference to any such case. Happy trails, David David Haynes [log in to unmask] San Antonio ____________________________________________________________ Click for free information on accounting careers, $150 hour potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/Ioyw6i3l692Cbr2BPxLJXxaYSDwZHzN71OdaIzFl4YEBjP6ArNbf7F/ ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).