Velvet Underground WLWH publicity photo

No permission required for the following reasons:

1. First, the photo is a mechanical scan/photocopy of the original cover and does not qualify for independent copyright protection.
2. Second, the portrait was first published prior to 1978 without a valid copyright notice.

the pre-1989 requirements for copyright notice were highly formalistic and, other than a few enumerated exceptions, required these three elements:

1. "The symbol © or the word 'Copyright' or the abbreviation 'Copr.' or an acceptable variant such as "(c)";
2. "The year of first publication for the work"; and
3. "The name of the copyright owner, or an abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a generally known alternative designation of the owner."

• Original source: Publicity photo circulated to press by MGM Records/Verve
• Immediate source: A scan accompanied "Overloaded: The Story of White Light/White Heat by David Fricke at Mojo. This scan crops out the publicity photo information/credits; an alternate, lower resolution version can be found on page 25 of The Velvet Underground Handbook (via the Internet Archive). Also compare this publicity photo from the same session, also found in the Mojo article, which does include the publicity photo info.