<P> On 24 March 2009, it was revealed that the fate of 5,900 artefacts retrieved from the wreck would rest with a U.S. District Judge's decision . The ruling was later issued in two decisions on 12 August 2010 and 15 August 2011 . As announced in 2009, the judge ruled that RMS Titanic Inc. owned the artefacts and her decision dealt with the status of the wreck as well as establishing a monitoring system to check future activity upon the wreck site . On 12 August 2010, Judge Rebecca Beach Smith granted RMS Titanic, Inc. fair market value for the artefacts but deferred ruling on their ownership and the conditions for their preservation, possible disposition and exhibition until a further decision could be reached . On 15 August 2011, Judge Smith granted title to thousands of artefacts from the Titanic, that RMS Titanic Inc. did not already own under a French court decision concerning the first group of salvaged artefacts, to RMS Titanic Inc. subject to a detailed list of conditions concerning preservation and disposition of the items . The artefacts can be sold only to a company that would abide by the lengthy list of conditions and restrictions . RMS Titanic Inc. can profit from the artefacts through exhibiting them . </P> <P> RMS Titanic Inc. has also attempted to secure exclusive physical access to the wreck site . In 1996, it obtained a court order finding that it had "the exclusive right to take any and all types of photographic images of the Titanic wreck and wreck site ." It obtained another order in 1998 against Deep Ocean Expeditions and Chris Haver, a British Virgin Islands corporation that aimed to run tourist trips to Titanic at a cost of $32,000 per person (it now charges $60,000). This was overturned in March 1999 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which ruled that the law of salvage did not extend to obtaining exclusive rights to view, visit and photograph a wreck . The court pointed out that Titanic is "located in a public place" in international waters, rather than in a private or controllable location to which access could be restricted by the owner . Granting such a right would also create a perverse incentive; since the aim of salvage is to carry out a salvage operation, leaving property in place so that it could be photographed would run counter to this objective . </P> <P> RMS Titanic Inc. has attracted considerable controversy for its approach to Titanic . Two rival camps have formed following the wreck's discovery: the "conservationists", championed by RMS Titanic Inc.'s George Tulloch (who died in 2004), and the "protectionists", whose most prominent advocate is Robert Ballard . The first camp has argued that artefacts from around the wreck should be recovered and conserved, while the latter camp argues that the entire wreck site should have been left undisturbed as a mass grave . Both camps agree that the wreck itself should not be salvaged--though RMS Titanic Inc. did not stick to its proclaimed "hands - off" policy when it managed to demolish Titanic's crow's nest in the course of retrieving the bell . Its predecessor Titanic Ventures agreed with IFREMER that it would not sell any of the artefacts but would put them on public display, for which it could charge an entry fee . </P> <P> Tulloch's approach has undoubtedly resulted in outcomes that would not have been possible otherwise . In 1991, he presented Edith Brown Haisman, a 96 - year - old survivor of the disaster, with her father's pocket watch which had been retrieved from the sea bed . She had last seen it on 15 April 1912 when he waved goodbye to his wife and daughter as they left aboard lifeboat 14 . They never saw him again and he presumably went down with the ship . The watch was loaned to Haisman "for life"; when she died four years later it was reclaimed by RMS Titanic Inc . On another occasion, a steamer trunk spotted in the debris field was found to contain three musical instruments, a deck of playing cards, a diary belonging to one Howard Irwin, and a bundle of letters from his girlfriend Pearl Shuttle . It was first thought that Irwin, a musician and professional gambler, had boarded the ship under a false identity . There was no record of him being among the passengers, even though a ticket had been purchased for him . It turned out that he had stayed ashore but his trunk had been brought aboard the ship by his friend Henry Sutehall, who was among the victims of the disaster . The fragile contents of the trunk were preserved due to the interior being starved of oxygen, which prevented bacteria from consuming the paper . Very few other shipwrecks have yielded readable paper . </P>

Where is the second half of the titanic