Public domain in France

Hello,

I have a patron who would like to republish a photograph originally printed in the French serial, Musica. The date of the article containing the photo is 1908. The patron would like to get a clean reproduction of the photo and permission, if necessary, to republish it for an academic book.

I'm wondering if this photo is in the public domain since the date of the article is 1908. I've asked other colleagues and, since it was published before 1923 and since France signed the Berne Convention, they seem to think it is in the public domain. I looked at legifrance.gouv.fr under their intellectual property section and the general duration of copyright is life of the author plus 70 years.

I've been having a really difficult time tracking down the original publisher of the journal just in case this photo happens not to be in the publc domain. There doesn't seem to be any indication of who took the photo in the text, but I have some other names associated with the journal that I could track down as well. What steps could I take next in this case? Are there any good resources to help me with this part of the question- in English or in French?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Cheers,

-- 
Tammy Ravas
Interim Coordinator of the Music Library
Assistant Music Librarian
Theatre Subject Specialist
University of Houston
e-mail: ravas[_at_]uh.edu
ph. 713-743-3196
fax. 713-743-9918