There's a reasonable chance someone has the painting on their wall. I know people in Hollywood who have some incredible items on displays they only show to trusted friends.
There was a time when Universal and others would put the primary hero props from their movies straight into their prop warehouses to get rental income from them for other productions. Some clever chap realized there was only a $300 damage/loss fee on each item, and word spread throughout the production personnel in Hollywood. Lots of irreplaceable props were suddenly "stolen" from productions.
I was involved in tracking one down to return to Universal (now in a museum) and the guy who had it made a fatal mistake of boasting about it one time in a forum. He wouldn't give it up, even with a letter from their lawyers, but we realized the writer of the movie lived nearby, so we had him go knock on the guy's door and it was handed over then.
I don't know what the value of the original painting would be. I got to see the BTTF posters before the painter, Drew Struzan, shipped them out to the buyer. I was surprised how cheap they were, I think he sold the three of them for $90K/piece. Mary Steenburgen was glued onto the third poster since they cast her late, after the painting was finished.
karaterobot · 3h ago
> an artist should be able to enjoy the fruits of his work in his lifetime if he wants to
Not if you're an illustrator doing work for hire. It's not unreasonable or unusual for the company who commissioned the art to own the copyright. It doesn't always work that way, but there's no reason to think Kastel was robbed without us knowing the actual terms of his contract with Universal. I assume he sold the copyright to Universal, and Universal fumbled the copyright after that, but that doesn't mean it reverts back to Kastel.
jfengel · 3h ago
As I understand it, problem wasn't Universal. It was that the publisher didn't put his name on the copyright page, so the art became public domain under the laws at the time.
That law has been replaced and you now get copyright automatically.
tanewishly · 2h ago
That was my takeaway as well. The weird thing is: since it's someone else doing the initial publication, their omission of copyright credits is costing the artist their copyright. That's... unexpected. I don't know how things worked back then in book art, but if the artist wasn't contracted as work-for-hire, protecting their copyright ought to become the burden of those who actually made the art public. I don't know if this argument was put forth in appeals, but ruling+motivation on this point from the appeals committees are absent from the story.
Sounds like you could accidentally make someone else's art public domain by forgetting to include them on the copyright page...
edit well, perhaps that's part of the reason the copyright laws were updated.
shakna · 1h ago
I assume that's why copyright in so many places outside the US only allow a company to license it from the creator. Copyright cannot always be surrendered.
cjcenizal · 4h ago
What a great story. Going from "it's a vagina with teeth, that's bad" to "it's a penis with teeth, that's good" made me chuckle... just sounds so typical of creatives.
Some might point and say sexism, but I think it's consistent with established tropes. There are piles of analogies between sex and aggression (the Latin word for “sheath” is vagina). An image of a penis-like shark attacking a nude woman is another to throw on the pile.
mananaysiempre · 1h ago
> Vagina dentata folktales have occurred in most cultures and throughout history.
This is just how the horror genre works. Big fantastical monster or supernatural
horrors but meant to be connected to real life fears.
The classic haunted house trope where the family sinks all their money into a house and father gets slowly possessed by a demon is meant to evoke the fear of financial troubles causing your partner to become abusive.
The Xenomorphs in Alien are meant to evoke the fear of rape and child birth.
Unsuspecting woman alone in a vulnerable situation attacked by a vicious creature— I can see why they thought the penis angle fit better.
thaumasiotes · 1h ago
> There are piles of analogies between sex and aggression (the Latin word for “sheath” is vagina).
Well, you're right about the Latin meaning of vagina. How does that illustrate the existence of analogies between sex and aggression?
echelon · 3h ago
The creatives of that time were so sex-minded. There were countless references to Freud and Kafka, HR Giger designed monsters after anatomy and fertility. Sex in general seemed to be on the tip of the tongue of so many authors, writers, and directors of that pre-internet era.
Accessible internet probably took the wind out of their sails. Media has become less porny over time, and the younger generations have even expressed an aversion to it.
t-writescode · 2h ago
Knowing several creatives, it's definitely not less porny or horny, it's just differently horny and porny.
Fetish content is *RAMPANT* when you know the techniques that are being used, for example. Edging is *very*, *very* popular in clickbait content, for example.
> He went to the Museum of Natural History to study sharks, and he had a model pose across a couple of stools for reference of what someone looks like swimming.
That explains why the swimmer, at least, looks a bit fake.
hnburnsy · 2h ago
Final Jeopardy June 16, 2025...
>In 1974 Allison Maher Stern posed horizontally on stools & pretended to swim for a cover of this book
enjeyw · 3h ago
It feels to me that even ignoring copyright law, Kastel has a limited claim to the credit here.
Art director Alex Gotfryd came up with the concept of the Shark and the Swimmer, while Paul Bacon did the original drawing.
At this point what’s to distinguish Kastel’s painting of a shark and a swimmer from anyone else making a painting of a shark and a swimmer?
nocoiner · 3h ago
God, I love pre-1976 copyright. So many formalities and intricacies. I’m kind of amazed that there’s so much from that era that remains in copyright.
Reason077 · 4h ago
> ”… Kastel realized that there was something fishy about the painting’s copyright situation.”
I see what you did there.
ironicsans · 4h ago
My first draft had a lot more fish puns. I decided they were a distraction so I cut most of them. A few still slipped through the net.
lelanthran · 1h ago
Not to worry, I was still hooked.
j-bos · 4h ago
I see what you did there :)
genghisjahn · 3h ago
Wow! Thats quite a catch!
tanewishly · 2h ago
You're going to need a bigger boat.
bredren · 4h ago
tldr; the famous art from the Jaws movie poster was originally a book cover. When first published it lacked the required attribution of the time to get enforceable copyright.
IIRC, there are some films in public domain for having "failed" to do this as well.
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS · 3h ago
The biggest is probably "Charade" with Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn and Walter Matthau.
duskwuff · 1h ago
Funny - the first one that comes to mind for me is "Night of the Living Dead" (1968).
There was a time when Universal and others would put the primary hero props from their movies straight into their prop warehouses to get rental income from them for other productions. Some clever chap realized there was only a $300 damage/loss fee on each item, and word spread throughout the production personnel in Hollywood. Lots of irreplaceable props were suddenly "stolen" from productions.
I was involved in tracking one down to return to Universal (now in a museum) and the guy who had it made a fatal mistake of boasting about it one time in a forum. He wouldn't give it up, even with a letter from their lawyers, but we realized the writer of the movie lived nearby, so we had him go knock on the guy's door and it was handed over then.
I don't know what the value of the original painting would be. I got to see the BTTF posters before the painter, Drew Struzan, shipped them out to the buyer. I was surprised how cheap they were, I think he sold the three of them for $90K/piece. Mary Steenburgen was glued onto the third poster since they cast her late, after the painting was finished.
Not if you're an illustrator doing work for hire. It's not unreasonable or unusual for the company who commissioned the art to own the copyright. It doesn't always work that way, but there's no reason to think Kastel was robbed without us knowing the actual terms of his contract with Universal. I assume he sold the copyright to Universal, and Universal fumbled the copyright after that, but that doesn't mean it reverts back to Kastel.
That law has been replaced and you now get copyright automatically.
Sounds like you could accidentally make someone else's art public domain by forgetting to include them on the copyright page...
edit well, perhaps that's part of the reason the copyright laws were updated.
Some might point and say sexism, but I think it's consistent with established tropes. There are piles of analogies between sex and aggression (the Latin word for “sheath” is vagina). An image of a penis-like shark attacking a nude woman is another to throw on the pile.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagina_dentata
The classic haunted house trope where the family sinks all their money into a house and father gets slowly possessed by a demon is meant to evoke the fear of financial troubles causing your partner to become abusive.
The Xenomorphs in Alien are meant to evoke the fear of rape and child birth.
Unsuspecting woman alone in a vulnerable situation attacked by a vicious creature— I can see why they thought the penis angle fit better.
Well, you're right about the Latin meaning of vagina. How does that illustrate the existence of analogies between sex and aggression?
Accessible internet probably took the wind out of their sails. Media has become less porny over time, and the younger generations have even expressed an aversion to it.
Fetish content is *RAMPANT* when you know the techniques that are being used, for example. Edging is *very*, *very* popular in clickbait content, for example.
That explains why the swimmer, at least, looks a bit fake.
>In 1974 Allison Maher Stern posed horizontally on stools & pretended to swim for a cover of this book
Art director Alex Gotfryd came up with the concept of the Shark and the Swimmer, while Paul Bacon did the original drawing.
At this point what’s to distinguish Kastel’s painting of a shark and a swimmer from anyone else making a painting of a shark and a swimmer?
I see what you did there.
IIRC, there are some films in public domain for having "failed" to do this as well.