> If Maloof bought the original negatives and especially if the Meier estate has not retained any copies of the work then he's got an enormously strong case to having bought not just a copy of the work but the work itself and the rights to distribute it.
Copyright law doesn't work that way. This argument is expressly addressed in 17 USC 202: "Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied.
"Transfer of ownership of any material object, including the copy or phonorecord in which the work is first fixed, does not of itself convey any rights in the copyrighted work embodied in the object; nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object."
Sure, if I sell you a copy of my novel or of a photograph that doesn't necessarily mean, of itself, that I've transferred ownership of the copyright to that work. Even if I've sold you the original handwritten manuscript or the original photographic slide. Even in the absence of any explicit agreement on my part in regards to the disposition of the copyright. However, if I sell every known copy of the work to you while intentionally depriving myself of any copy and the ability to reproduce copies, then there is a very much stronger case that through that action I've transfered the rights to the work.
Copyright law doesn't work that way. This argument is expressly addressed in 17 USC 202: "Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied.
"Transfer of ownership of any material object, including the copy or phonorecord in which the work is first fixed, does not of itself convey any rights in the copyrighted work embodied in the object; nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object."
(Extra paragraphing added.)