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Are Works By Artists Such as Frida Kahlo and Henri Matisse Really In the Public Domain? Correcting a Common Copyright Misconception

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Are Works By Artists Such as Frida Kahlo and Henri Matisse Really In the Public Domain? Correcting a Common Copyright Misconception

Without fail, the start of each new year brings various resolutions, a surge in gym memberships, and a flood of misinformation about copyright law and which works have fallen into the public domain. Artists Rights Society (ARS) has spent over 40 years protecting and promoting artists’ intellectual property rights. We’d be remiss if we did not address the incorrect information put forth in recent articles published by various news outlets such as Hyperallergic’s piece titled Frida Kahlo and Henri Matisse Enter the Public Domain.

Contrary to the information published by Hyperallergic, the general copyright rules in the United States are as follows:
• Works published in the U.S. before 1930 are in the public domain.
• For works published in the U.S. between 1930 and through 1977, the copyright term is the date of first U.S. publication plus 95 years thereafter.
• For works published in 1978 and onward, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years.

The preponderance of the works of both Matisse and Kahlo were not first published in the U.S. until they began to be well known here in the period 1930-1978. Consequently, the vast majority of them are still copyright protected here by virtue of the U.S. ratification of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (1994) which restored foreign copyrights in the U.S. that had previously been lost because of their failure to fulfill U.S. copyright formalities. In so doing it modified S.104(a) of the U.S. Copyright Act, giving such works a term of 95 years from the date of their first U.S. publication. 

At Artists Rights Society, we understand that global copyright law can be a complex and confusing mosaic, and we are here to assist you. If you are planning to reproduce artworks by Henri Matisse or Frida Kahlo, please contact us and we’ll be happy to guide you through the necessary steps for copyright clearance.

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