Ownership

Who owns the Zapruder film?

Two answers, both correct. The physical camera-original belongs to the U.S. government and is held at the National Archives. The copyright in the images belongs to The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

The short version

Physical film: owned by the United States government since August 1, 1998, when the Assassination Records Review Board designated it an "assassination record" under the JFK Records Act. Stored at NARA in College Park, Maryland.

Copyright: donated to The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in December 1999 by the Zapruder family, through their holding company LMH. The Museum licenses reproduction rights and is where documentary filmmakers, publishers, and scholars go to clear use of the imagery (Sixth Floor Museum — Zapruder film).

The ownership timeline

November 22, 1963. Abraham Zapruder owns the physical film outright as the photographer who exposed it.
November 23, 1963. Zapruder sells print rights to Life magazine for $50,000.
November 25, 1963. Zapruder sells all remaining rights, including the camera-original, to Life for a total of $150,000, payable in six annual installments (Stolley, Esquire, 1973).
1975. Time Inc. (Life's parent) returns the film and copyright to the Zapruder family for $1, keeping only certain print rights.
1978. The family forms the LMH Company to manage licensing.
August 1, 1998. The ARRB takes the physical original into federal custody.
July 1999. A three-member arbitration panel awards LMH $16 million in just compensation for the physical film — the largest such award in NARA history.
December 30, 1999. LMH donates the copyright, the three Jamieson first-generation copies, and all associated rights to The Sixth Floor Museum.

What the split means in practice

The Zapruder family — Abraham's descendants, principally his granddaughter Alexandra Zapruder — retain no financial or legal interest in the film. Alexandra Zapruder's 2016 book Twenty-Six Seconds: A Personal History of the Zapruder Film(Twelve) is the fullest first-person account of the ownership history from inside the family.

What copyright covers — and does not

The Sixth Floor Museum's copyright covers the specific photographic images fixed on the 8mm film. It does not cover descriptions of what those images show, the timing of events, or independent analyses of the frames — which is why sourced explainers, academic papers, and news reporting can discuss the film without licensing it, but cannot reproduce the frames themselves without permission.

Under U.S. law, the copyright is scheduled to enter the public domain in 2059 (95 years after the 1963 fixation, under the Copyright Term Extension Act's rules for works made for hire and pre-1978 works). Until then, editorial use is licensed on a fee-scaled basis by the Museum.