Although Paramount asserts copyright on the margin of this print released as promotion for a 1993 documentary about the uncompleted project, no photographer is credited and It's All True was a 1942 production of RKO Pictures. No copyright holder is listed for the image as it appears in the section of photographs following page 110 in Simon Callow's Orson Welles: Hello Americans (2006). The book's picture credits on page x concludes with this statement: "The author and publishers have made every effort to trace and contact copyright holders." Likewise, no copyright holder is listed for the image as it appears on page 132 of Robert Stam's Tropical Multiculturalism: A Comparative History of Race in Brazilian Cinema Culture (1997), or page 77 of Joseph McBride's What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? (2006).

As stated by film production expert Eve Light Honthaner in The Complete Film Production Handbook, (Focal Press, 2001 p. 211.):

"Publicity photos have traditionally not been copyrighted. Since they are disseminated to the public, they are generally considered public domain, and therefore clearance by the studio that produced them is not necessary."

Nancy Wolff, includes a similar explanation:

"There is a vast body of photographs, including but not limited to publicity stills, that have no notice as to who may have created them." (The Professional Photographer's Legal Handbook By Nancy E. Wolff, Allworth Communications, 2007, p. 55.)

Film industry author Gerald Mast, in Film Study and the Copyright Law (1989) p. 87, writes:

"According to the old copyright act, such production stills were not automatically copyrighted as part of the film and required separate copyrights as photographic stills. The new copyright act similarly excludes the production still from automatic copyright but gives the film's copyright owner a five-year period in which to copyright the stills. Most studios have never bothered to copyright these stills because they were happy to see them pass into the public domain, to be used by as many people in as many publications as possible."