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September 9

Was Wilbur "Bud" E. Dutton a US government employee?

I have some images at Commons in Commons:Category:Photographs by Wilbur E. Dutton. When they were automatically uploaded, the source had incorrect 1900 dates. The dates have since been corrected to the '60s and '70s, so these are copyrighted unless the photographer was a government employee. The fact that the images come from NPGallery suggests that he might have been, but doesn't guarantee it. I didn't turn up any information about the photographer with some quick Googling. Can anybody with some more research skills find any information about him? – BMacZero (🗩) 19:57, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dutton is listed here as Production Manager in the Division of Audovisual Arts in a Directory of the National Park Service from the 1960s, so he was clearly a federal employee. He is also mentioned here (p. 46) as member of (apparently) an NPS team taping interviews with Rose Kennedy in 1967–8 in the context of the project of making JFK's birthplace a National Historic Site. Not to be confused with Wilmer Coffman (Bud) Dutton, Staff Director of the NCPC from 1962 to 1965, and in that position also a federal employee. --Lambiam 22:23, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam: Great source, thanks a lot for your help! – BMacZero (🗩) 23:44, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Were these pics taken on behalf of the government, or were they just personal snapshots? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:44, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Baseball Bugs: Yeah, that's also a consideration. Because these uploads are coming from NPGallery, which is an official database of the National Park Service, I've been comfortable assuming that they are not personal photographs, at least if photography could conceivably have been one of the author's official duties. It seems unlikely that a photographer for the NPS would upload personal photos to the NPS's official database. – BMacZero (🗩) 23:44, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The photographs by Dutton in the NPGallery are presented with the boilerplate No Copyright - United States text: "The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States". In this case, "the organization" is the NPS, and the only plausible explanation for their belief is that they know, or have reason to believe, that Dutton shot them in his capacity as NPS employee. --Lambiam 08:03, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]