Otto Perry Photos

[NW Mailing List]

Rob

I completely agree with you. I did the same in Roanoke at the Jolly Roger Haggle Shop, which had 4x8 sheets of plywood on sawhorses for tables, and at least one table was full of old N&W Magazines, another had model magazines. I love my magazines as well, and only in recent months have begun to starting to dispose of them.

I ordered one of the prints the ebay seller offered, on November 2nd, and I am waiting to see what actually shows up. But I am betting what is being done is the seller (who has at this moment, almost 602,000 photo offerings on eBay including, I’d guess, images out of the N&WHS collection as part of them) is doing screen grabs or image downloads and simply getting them printed and shipped out. I am suspecting inkjet prints, not actual photographic prints, but will post a follow-up. 

Even though the Denver library has copyright, this seller is based in Australia, making legal action expensive if not downright impossible. It reminds me of a letter I got close to 35 years ago from a person building a live steam model of an N&W Class A in Australia. He had paid Mark Faville over $1,500 for a set of prints, which was about 400 as I recall, and more later. Faville apparently printed him about 80 prints, and decided that was all he wanted to fool with. I told them man I was sorry, I had no connection to Faville, but I knew he was hard to deal with, and the only thing that might get his attention was legal action, which, again, was difficult with the international borders. I never heard if he pursued anything or not. I really felt sorry for the man, sending that much money and getting less than 1/4 of what you had paid for. 

The seller is certainly taking advantage of skirting the law here and most certainly is selling ink jet prints, not actual darkroom prints.

Best
Ken Miller

> On Nov 29, 2023, at 9:08 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> I completely agree. I guess most of us are old enough to remember real
> magazine stands / stores. In my case it was a long narrow shop in downtown
> Newport News near the shipyard. In the late '60s and early '70s that dingy
> place must have stocked thousands of titles. I would save up my allowance
> for weeks to spend it there, and would return home with a big stack of
> magazines and comic books. I love magazines. My attitude is that if you like
> a magazine at all, buy a subscription to it if you can afford to. 
> 
> The public library was a big part of my youth too. My parents were avid
> readers and they taught me to read before I started first grade. My Dad took
> me to see a silent movie at the Main Street branch library when I was maybe
> 12 and that spurred a life long obsession with silent films. That's why the
> guy on eBay selling prints of Otto Perry photos annoys me. The Denver Public
> Library's digital collections web site is quite clear that their photos can
> be licensed for commercial use for a fee but proper credit must be stated.
> Maybe the eBay seller is legit, or maybe he's ripping off the library, I
> don't know. But an alternative to buying from eBay is purchasing a digital
> file from the Denver library and having your local Staples make a high
> quality print. 
> 
> Rob Doorack
> Guilford, CT