[rollei_list] rollei_list] Copyright, intellectual property and invention of photography
- From: Emmanuel Bigler <Emmanuel.Bigler@xxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:13:29 +0100
From Marvin:
Good point Doug, since the negative was first used in England I hold
that it was an English invention, as to who owns the negative I’m unsure
though I think in France it belonged to the owner of that which was
photographed. Marvin.
Hello all !
About the invention of photography and intellectual property.
The first permanent recording of a photographic image is credited to
Nicéphore Niépce (the spelling with the é in Niépce is strange even in
France we would simply write Niepce). However, Niépce did not disclose
anything and it is known that before he produced in 1826 (the actual
date is unknown) a landscape shot "view at le Gras" on a bitumen plate
(8 hours of exposure in day light ; the image is now at the University
of Texas), he was successful producing contact prints of old engravings
in 1825.
One of those early bitumen contact prints belonged to private
collectors, Marie-Thérèse & André Jammes, and was sold at an auction by
Sotheby's in Paris in March 2002 ; the image can be seen here:
http://www.photographie.com/magazine/publication/101579/520/DSCN1904.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/Nic%C3%A9phore_Ni%C3%A9pce_Oldest_Photograph_1825.jpg/200px-Nic%C3%A9phore_Ni%C3%A9pce_Oldest_Photograph_1825.jpg
in this article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photography
I do not think that Niépce ever issued a patent, he relied only on
secret know-how. Keeping secret know-how brings us back to corporations
of craftsmen in the middel-ages, but actually in the modern industry,
many manufacturing processes are not patented and kept secret.
Daguerre started to "co-operate" with Niépce in 1926. Actually Daguerre
tried to get as many technical informations he could from Niépce but
Niépce was very reluctant.
Eventually after Niépce's death in 1833 Daguerre accepted to disclose
the daguerréotype process, completely different from the bitumen
process, to the French Academy of Sciences in 1839.
The negociations with the French State involved a life time pension for
Daguerre in exchange with the public disclosure of the daguerréotype
process with no patent and no royalties on the process itself.
It is fascinating to see how fast the daguerréotype process spread to
the world after 1839.
The neg/pos process is credited to Fox Talbot in 1840 ; according to the
French wiki page, Fox Talbot was convinced to be the true inventor of
photopgraphy. He actually took a patent on his calotype process.
see here for details http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Fox_Talbot
--
Emmanuel
---
Rollei List
- Post to rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Subscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe'
in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org
- Unsubscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with
'unsubscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org
- Online, searchable archives are available at
//www.freelists.org/archives/rollei_list
Other related posts:
