I'm writing a blog post related to the C programming language, and would like to illustrate it with this iconic photograph of Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie in front of a DEC PDP-11, but only if doing so is legal.
The above link is the closest I can find to a canonical source for the photograph, but it doesn't say anything about a license to use it. "Courtesy of Gwen Bell" suggests Gwen Bell may have given the Computer History Museum permission, but that doesn't mean that permission is extended to anyone else.
TinEye reverse image search finds many other uses around the Internet, but none of them say anything about a license either.
I suspect the answer is: yes, everyone except the Computer History Museum is technically breaking the law by using this photo, just counting on no one caring enough to make an issue of it. Is there anything I am missing?
Added:
Linking to the original version of the picture is an option. I had been reluctant to do it by default, because I've seen a lot of broken links created that way (when the original gets moved around), and some site owners object (they consider it theft of bandwidth). I did not know that copyright law distinguishes that case; that is interesting to know!
In this case, following Jen's suggestion, I contacted the Computer History Museum, and they graciously replied with explicit permission to use the image (with attribution, of course).
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