A couple of days ago, i wrote the webhost of
http://www.nakedcharity.blogspot.com to ask if he knew of anybody scanning old naked charity calendars. Here is his reply:
[QUOTE]Hi. Great to hear from you.
I don't know of anyone scanning old charity calendars: I wish I did. I'd be
delighted to see such a resource myself, for the same reason I started the
site and blog.
If one simply has the desire to look at naked models, there is certainly no
shortage of sources on the internet. These pictures are clearly different,
special. What the models in these charity calendars have in common is an
attitude that comes through in almost every photograph: Self-awareness,
courage, commitment to their cause, self-depreciating humor, and a bit of a
tweak to the nose to people too stuffy to appreciate the gesture.
It's what I find appealing about these images, regardless of where the
models rate on any scale of conventional beauty. Whether hourglass or pear,
young or old, man or woman, they're all unfailingly, irresistably charming.
Different groups produce calendars for different reasons, so I'd be
reluctant to make any generalized guesses about what the response to a
request for permission to scan would be.
Some, I'm sure--most, I tend to think--would be delighted for the attention,
especially if the scans were distributed along with the appropriate
information for donating to the cause the calendars were intended to
benefit.
Some would flatly refuse. Some of the "models" were only reluctantly talked
into participating, with assurances like "we're only printing a few hundred
of them" and "only a few local people will see them" and "most of them will
sit in a drawer unused". The idea of having these images available on the
Web would scare the stuffing out of them.
And some continue to make calendars, and might insist on protecting their
copyrights. Long Tom Grange, Vail Und****d, and Breast of Canada are among a
dozen or so organizations who've marketed calendars in multiple years.
And just because the calendars are expired doesn't mean the group isn't
still selling them. Salt Springs, near Seattle, continued to sell their
calendar for several years, until they finally sold out.
The copyright issues alone strike me as utterly nightmarish. Who owns the
photo, the model, the photographer, or the publisher? Or some combination of
the three? And just because it's last year's calendar doesn't mean it's
public domain. That won't happen until, last I heard, 75 years after the
death of the last surviving author.
The internet being the kind of place it is, of course, if someone were to
begin such an image collection, there is precious little anyone could do
about it if he wished to. Very few of these groups have the wherewithal to
mount any kind of legal protest, even if they knew where to direct it. And
if the collection isn't itself making money, I can't see that it would be
doing anyone any harm.
But, as you say, the small numbers in which most of these calendars were
printed would make finding and acquiring them very difficult. The main
reason I started my site is that I couldn't afford to buy the calendars.
All of this is, of course, just my untrained non-legal opinion. I hope you
find it useful.
Daniel Taylor
Nakedcharity.com
Nakedcharity.blogspot.com[END QUOTE]
The jist - To build a collection, go ahead and try going into the business of buying and scanning calendars yourself. No one else is doing it. You may be violating the law, but few have the resources to come after you. Then you can barter and trade your scans with others doing the same thing to build up your collection without having to spend TOO much money.
Or......stick around OCC and nakedcharity.blogspot.com as your next best alternative. Take what you can get and be thankful for the fact that the internet exists, period..
cheers,
Klondike