Apollonaris Zeus wrote:Mozy bonz wrote:
Furthermore, buildings created on or after December 1, 1990 are protected by copyright. A copyright owner has the exclusive right to reproduce a copyrighted work, and photographing a copyrighted work is considered a way of reproducing it. Thus, you may need permission to photograph a building or an art work.
Only in its architectual form, not if its photographed from a public place and sold as a print or poster. I forget the date of the landmark case, "Blah Blah verses the "Rock & Roll Hall of Flame" you can google it.
The copyrighted & Trademarked, Hall of Flame, lost because no one has the sole right to a public view. If you photographed it from land owned by Hall of Flame, i.e. Burning Man leased area, you have no right to commercialized it. But photograph the Hall of Flame, i.e. Burning Man from outside the permited area and both the Hall of Flame and Burning Man has no protected rights!!!! This protects advertisers, painters, photographers and all other artists. Commercial artists can use it as a backdrop for their cars or models. An artist can incorporate cans of Cambell Soup as art. Without those exceptions, art itself could cease to exist because I was the first one to paint a circle, therefore I own the copyright to circles. so it must end somewhere, but I own only the architectural rights to the Rock & Roll Hall of Flame.
""fixed in a tangible medium of expression" is the key to protecting photography of a feature, say Old Faithful. If it is shot with no tangible medium of expression that one can argue is original, you have no case of protection or rights. Ansel Adams' photograph of Old Faithful with the pine tree in front of it is tangible and therefore protected, but he would have sued every other photographer that has copied it to establish his rights. Once someone else doe sell a copy and Mr Adams knowiling refuses to file a claim against that person, he therefore loses his protection to all others because he hasn't establish a history of protection for that piece of work.
I doubt that BM will take action against a photographer selling a print of the event, but they will take action if it is used as a poster or in a commercial with use of the BM or logo.
I barter my BM posters for some of those more valued items @ BM, but I don't sell them at anytime and it I did I would seek permission from Larry and the gang.
©2006AIIZ
PS- every year we revisit this topic maybe someone should revisit the old topic immediatly after the event for we all can review it and add more original opinions.
there are two key things in the quote
1)buildings created on or after December 1, 1990
2)photographing a copyrighted work is considered a way of reproducing it. Thus,
you may need (not you will need)permission to photograph a building or an art work.
In general, you may photograph people in public. The use of those photographs can be restricted due to a privacy law called the "right of publicity." While the specifics of the law vary by state, it prevents the unauthorized use of a person's likeness for commercial purposes (for advertising or trade). It usually does not apply if the image is used editorially, which includes fine art.
Fortunately for photographers, this law recently was put to the test and it passed. From 1999 until 2001, a photographer named Philip-Lorca diCorcia took photos of people in Times Square. His camera was set on a tripod and strobe lights were placed across the street. The project culminated in an exhibition called "Heads" at the Pace/MacGill Gallery in Chelsea, New York.
One of shots from the project was of Erno Nussenzweig, an Orthodox Jew and retired diamond merchant from Union City, N.J. He sued diCorcia and Pace for exhibiting and publishing the portrait without his permission and for profiting from it. He asked the court for an injunction to stop sales and publication of the photograph and for $500,000 in compensatory damages and $1.5 million in punitive damages. Of note, Nussenzweig complained that use of the photograph violated his constitutional right to practice his religion, which prohibits the use of graven images.
In an affidavit submitted to the court on Mr. diCorcia's behalf, Peter Galassi, Chief Curator of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, said, "If the law were to forbid artists to exhibit and sell photographs made in public places without the consent of all who might appear in those photographs, then artistic expression in the field of photography would suffer drastically. If such a ban were projected retroactively, it would rob the public of one of the most valuable traditions of our cultural inheritance."
The judge in the case dismissed the suit on First Amendment grounds that the possibility of these photographs is the price every person must pay for a society where information and opinion freely flows. While Nussenzweig is appealing, the good news is that photographers may continue to photograph people in public and may use those shots editorially without the subject's permission.
Copyright laws are very completed and changing all the time. I wouldn’t think that lexis would use any footage or pictures without
what they think is the proper release forms for the work..
I have a wait and see about this and I don’t have the answer
Thanks AG for all your input on this.
And for the record I wont buy lexis even if what they did ends up being legal.... it's about integrity and doing the right thing... just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
