When Were Images of US Stamps First Allowed to be Published?

Greetings Mr. coastwatcher,
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I am not quite sure about the law forbidding images of U.S. postage stamps being enforced during the early years. As of 1975 they are protected by copyright law. blogs.findlaw.com/legally_weird/2017/08/are-postage-stamps-protected-by-copyright.html
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Maybe I am misunderstanding your statement?
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Respectfully,

Gordon Lee

Stamps are federal "accountable paper", and as such, as far as I know, it is still illegal to reproduce life-like images of stamps, money, savings bonds... It is not illegal to produce images of them, they just cannot be lifelike. Somewhere on some forum, I have a post that discusses this and size restrictions of the reproduction or the use of defacing graphics (e.g., conspicuous slash through the denomination...). I doubt I can find it again, so in a nutshell...

When USPS began copyrighting stamp designs latter half of the 1970s, it then became illegal to reproduce any size image of the stamp without prior approval from USPS -- although with the usual fair/educational use exemptions that apply to all copyrighted works. Basically, USPS only went after those who were selling commercial products (i.e., stamps on shirts, ties, magnets...) as these things competed directly with USPS products. Treasury Department technically can get involved, since the accountable paper restrictions are imposed by the Treasury Department. But I can't recall a single instance of the Treasury Department going after anyone for producing US stamp images.

Some US stamp design copyrights have co-owners with the USPS -- typically, business interests or estates of person being commemorative. These "business interests", who I shall not name, are typically very aggressive in enforcing their copyrights (the "I already paid for my lawyer, let's see if you're willing to pay through the nose for lawyer or if you rather pay this rather outrageous settlement amount instead"). If it were up to me, and it's not, I would forgo commemorating said person/entity and go on to the next person/occasion on the list.

So many images of US stamps are already posted on the internet, that any "enforcement" is clearly targeted based on financial reasons. How many times has money creeped into the equation and ruined a good thing... but I digress.

Glad someone is salvaging the selvedge...