I don’t know if mine is the only fan-powered page about a dead actress that continually gets questioned about what rights they have to post about said dead actress, but I have to say I’m getting irritated by it. If anyone out there who is collecting and sharing photos and publicly available information is actually asking permission to do this as a hobby, I don’t know who they’ve asked and how. For the record: I am not sure if I even know how Joan Bennett’s estate works. I am not Joan Bennett’s estate. I have always made it very clear- it’s been in the title since 2018- that this is a FAN project. Everything I share is shared only as a sect. 107 fair use teaching aid. My weird, niche hobby is researching Joan Bennett and collecting JB fan ephemera, and I am fully covered under section 107 to be able to talk about her freely, as any critic and reporter would have done in her time. If there has been some change in the US copyright law that eradicated fair use, no one told me. I am under the impression that I do not have to ask permission to talk about Joan Bennett and share photos which I do not gain any profit from. I had a tip jar up a while back, but a woman criticized me for that one time and it made me cry, so I took it down. I can, hand to God, say that I have made NEGATIVE money at this. If it was possible to be judged by a dead lady for how much money you spent on her, I would have been stricken down by dead actress force lightning long before now. I’m probably more likely to be sued for using the term “force lightning” without proper credit to Lucas than I am for posting photos of and stories about Joan Bennett.
THAT RANT ASIDE…
I’m piece-mealing together biographical information from the clippings I’ve downloaded, and all of it will be available for f r e e because y’all have me literally terrified of the copyrights and estates monster. It’s better than a book, it’s snippets of real life like Joan walking into a room with a pill clenched between her teeth and asking if anyone had seen her handbag. Real historical geekery, not just that stuff you already know about dates and movies. I’m just not sure how it’s all going to be laid out. Bear with me while I throw metaphorical spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, and please enjoy my disclaimer on the new biography page.
xoK
