Fair use?

[ffutures]

For the Weinbaum RPG I want to include parts of some illustrations that were used for Weinbaum's stories in their original publication. The main ones are the spaceships from the cover of Astounding Stories, November 1935, which is presumably still in copyright (incidentally, can anyone name the artist?). The whole cover is here:

http://www.collectorshowcase.fr/IMAGES2/ast_3511.jpg

What I want to do is isolate the two ships as separate images, remove the lettering, and do my best to replace the bits that are covered by lettering, the bit of the second ship that is covered by part of the Peri, etc.

I assume that I'd need to pay royalties for the whole cover, if I could find the copyright holder - would using small parts constitute fair use?

Comments

[robin-d-laws.livejournal.com]

Not unless it's for the purpose of criticism or comment.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks - I was afraid of that.

[cobrabay.livejournal.com]

The artist was Howard V. Brown, he did the covers of nearly all the Tremaine edited issues of Astounding Stories.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks - looks like I can't do it anyway.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

My first guess would be that the copyright is held by the present owners of Analog. Is this known to be incorrect?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

No idea - but I've made a fairly simple 3D model that works reasonably well, I'll use that.

[timill]

Howard Brown seems to have died in 1945, so if he held the copyrights they would have lapsed in 1970 or 1995, I think. BICBW, and in any case it's the better bet that the publishers owned them.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'll do my own illustration - if I use a 3D model I can probably recycle it for different pictures, so it's worth the effort in the long run.