English: Bill Gates was photographed by the Albuquerque, New Mexico police in 1977 after he got a speeding ticket and forgot his license[1].
Date
Taken on 13 December 1977
Source
The Smoking Gun[2], which is an affiliate of Court TV[3] and owned by Time Warner. Ultimate source, Albuquerque, New Mexico police records. Cropped and converted to PNG
This is a "public record" under New Mexico law ("It is clear that those records which are necessary and incidental to carrying out the duties imposed upon an individual by operation of law are generally deemed public records. 1961-62 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 61-137"[4]) "Public" in this case does not mean public domain, but it does mean available to the public under records requests. The legal definition of publication in the United States includes "offering to distribute" the work to the public. Since New Mexico declared its records open in 1961, this image was published (or offered for distribution) from the moment of its creation, and it bears no copyright notice nor was it ever registered for copyright. Hence it was published pre-1978 with no copyright notice.
Note that it may still be copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works (depending on the date of the author's death), such as Canada (50 p.m.a.), Mainland China (50 p.m.a., not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 p.m.a.), Mexico (100 p.m.a.), Switzerland (70 p.m.a.), and other countries with individual treaties.
Білл Гейтс був сфотографований поліцією Альбукерке, штат Нью-Мексико, у 1977 році після порушення правил дорожнього руху (подробиці якого з часом були втрачені).
{{Information |Description=Microsoft boss Bill Gates was photographed by the Albuquerque, New Mexico police in 1977 after a traffic violation (details of which have been lost over time). |Source=The Smoking Gun[http://www.thesmokinggun.com/mugshots/gatesm