Life, 1914-01-08 · page 14 of 44
Life — January 8, 1914 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page discusses **Life magazine's ongoing copyright disputes** with newspapers and publishers who reproduced its illustrations without permission or payment. The text details how Life repeatedly warned publishers about infringements, pursued legal action, and struggled to protect artists' and writers' work from unauthorized use. The accompanying cartoon, titled **"A 'Captain of Industry'"**, satirizes this problem. It shows a man with a dog outside an optician's shop labeled "Opticians," with an automobile nearby. The caption reads: "How some of 'em must feel when they remember how they got it"—suggesting that some industrialists obtained their success through questionable means, possibly including theft of intellectual property or uncredited material. The cartoon critiques unethical business practices of the era.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
EPE - Life and Its Copyrights i spite of Lire’s emphatic and repeated warnings to publishers, to daily newspaper publishers and editors in particular, that its carefully copyrighted pictures must not be used except with permission first obtained, infringe- ments occur with unpleasant regularity. Those warnings have been emphasized by court proceed- ings resulting in heavy pecuniary penalties for the offenders and in other cases by cash payments made rather than go to trial. Lire has repeatedly said that it does not wish to get money in this way, but it knows of no other means by which to bring home to infringers, intentional and other, the fact that they must be cautious when they use pictures and other material for which they do not pay. The principal cause of these infringements is the tre- mendoug pressure brought to bear on editors and other subordinates by the proprietors of daily and Sunday news- Papers to fill their big supplements with illustrations. The instructions seem to be “Get pictures, honestly if you can, but get them.” Not only for its own interests, but in behalf of artists and writers generally, Lire claims that the big, rich news- papers should pay for the material with which they pad their columns. If the increased cost should lead,to a reduction in the size of the newspapers, it would not be an unmitigated misfortune; but that is not the point. What Lire wishes to convey is that hereafter it will accept no excuses or explanation in cases of infringe- ment. The customary excuse on the part of some of the most prominent publications has been that there was no inten- tion to infringe. The weakest, and not an exceptional excuse, has been that it was the act of a careless editor who would lose his job if Lire enforced its rights. In these cases it has seemed to us that the employee was simply following the tacit instructions of his employer, and that it might be perhaps to his advantage if he found work in higher principled surroundings. Lire takes much care and goes to considerable expense in securing the copyrights which insure its originality and enable it properly to recompense its artists and writers. It is, therefore, compelled, not by any mean spirit of trying to mulct the unwary, but for self-preservation, to insist by every means in its power on complete respect for its prop- erty rights. There is no publishing office that has not had repeated special notice of Lire's position in this matter in addition to the legal notice which appears in its every issue. In the circumstances Lire feels that it has done consid- erably more than its fair duty in the way of warning and does not propose to accept any excuses of ignorance or inadvertence as a bar to the very definite penalties laid down in the laws of the United States and other countries where Lire enjoys copyright protection. A “CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY" HOW SOME OF 'EM MUST FEEL WHEN THEY REMEMBER HOW THEY GOT IT comicbooks.com