All Your Stonehenge Photos Are Belong To England 347
An anonymous reader writes "English Heritage, the organization that runs and manages various historical sites in the UK, such as Stonehenge, has apparently sent letters to various photo sharing and stock photo sites claiming that any photo of Stonehenge that is being sold violates its rights, and only English Heritage can get commercial benefit from such photos. In fact, they're asking for all money made from such photos, stating: 'all commercial interest to sell images must be directed to English Heritage.' As one recipient noted, this seems odd, given that English Heritage has only managed Stonehenge 'for 27 of the monument's 4,500 year old history.'"
Simple: (Score:5, Insightful)
Step Two: Find some old stuff alying around that people seem to like.
Step Three: Claim "Ownership" of aforementioned stuff.
Step Four: PROFIT!!!
Dear English Heritage, (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear English Heritage,
Go fuck yourselves.
Signed,
Everyone else
Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
Ruining photography (Score:5, Insightful)
This sort of crap has the potential to make photographer's lives really annoying. And this comes just as more and more people are active amateur photographers.
The lighting on the Eiffel Tower is copyrighted? Museums claim rights over photographic reproductions of century-old paintings? Where do we draw the line?
On the one hand, we have the physical equivalent of contracts: agreements made as a requirement for entrance; this allows zoos, museums, etc. to restrict the use of commercial photography. But photos taken from public streets? From the air?
The fact that these institutions go after commercial users isn't much comfort; the line between non-commercial amateur and commercial-but-still-amateur photography. Have ads up on a blog? Submit your photo to a local art show? Sell your photo to a stock photo site? It's easy for an amateur to make a little cash from the best of their photos.
While we're making unenforcable claims... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simple: (Score:2, Insightful)
Step Five: Take it to the logical limit. They didn't make Stonehenge, but they can control the copyright, correct? So, following that logic, if I don't make a song, but I downloaded it and therefore now possess a copy of the song, do I now have say as to the copyright of the song? Because, as the copyright holder, I can't be sued for breaking copyright, right? 'I can't be breaking copyright if I have a copy!' should be a legal defense if this holds up.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Insightful)
Step Three: Claim "Ownership" of aforementioned stuff.
While for RIAA has clear the legal bases of their claims (copyright law, in various incarnations), it is not quite clear to me on what legal basis English Heritage can claim ownership of the photos one takes. IANAL, but to my mind they can't claim copyright:
Head explodes!
Re:Dear English Heritage, (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. My photos of Stonehenge are mine. I shot them, and my admission ticket had nothing on it restricting the terms of my photographing it.
These are my fucking property. I created them, I own the copyright, not this organization, and I'll sell them if I please.
Now, if they want to try to trademark Stonehenge, go right ahead, but I don't see it holding up.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
I would think that, in this instance, as in all things, they would be True Neutral.
Re:Ruining photography (Score:5, Insightful)
As a theatrical lighting designer, I dislike people like you. I don't want to copy your design for your last play. Firstly, it doesn't match the play I'm working on (even if it's the same script). If i did use it, it would look like crap and I wouldn't be hired again. Are you afraid of me copying a specific thing you did with a light? Guess what, borrowing little bits from others is how you grow in the arts. It's not just about each little idea, it's also about how you combine them. Think collage. And if you create the iconic version that runs on broadway and that every director asks to be repeated, well fucking awesome. Also, no other lighting designer is ever going to have the same equipment or space again, so even if they do recreate your look, it's less like copying and more like making a crayon version of the Mona Lisa. An homage. So please, get over yourself. This isn't like downloading music, where instead of coming to see your play they're looking at pictures they pirated or they went out and created a perfect working replica. At worst, someone several years down the line will make they're lights look kinda like what they're (crappy) camera remembers them like, only with different equipment in a different space. And people will say "those lights don't work for this production" and they will be out of work. Also, you don't mention copywriting your programming. Which you can. Also you're instructions to the board op and SM. Which, again, are useless unless everything is a perfect match. Which it won't be. Sorry for being so ranty. But worrying about someone copying one of my lighting designs is like worrying about someone copying the way an actor acts. Yes, with enough work someone could do it...but only sorta, and it would v&e meaningless to someone watching, and anyone in the biz making hiring decisions is gonna call them out on it...
Wrong jargon for Britain (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear English Heritage,
We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram.
Signed,
Everyone else
Re:Image rights and trademark (Score:2, Insightful)
However.... exploiting any intellectual property says nothing about "making something intellectual property" that was not intellectual property before.
And doesn't say anything about giving the commission the exclusive right to exploit any intellectual property.
The most obvious definition of 'exploit intellectual property' is.... they can sell post cards with a picture of the historic place featured, even if someone else took the picture, and didn't give them permission.
It says nothing about "seizing any intellectual property" or "denying other people the right to exploit their own intellectual property, if relating to the monument", or "creating intellectual property rights from thin air", and enforcing them retroactively
Re:Image rights and trademark (Score:3, Insightful)
That being said, why doesn't it make sense that they want to control the commercial exploitation of their properties? The British public pays to maintain these sites, and an awful lot of money at that, so why should some company be allowed to step in and enjoy the benefits of the public's investment?
Because what's being "exploited" are photos, which are in no way, shape, or form their property.
I mean, I pay a fair bit to maintain my car as well, but that doesn't give me any control over the "exploitation" of third-party photos of it.
Re:Dissenting voice here (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I don't see why English taxpayers should have to pay for the upkeep of Sonehenge and then let anyone else make money off the site.
Re:Ruining photography (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, it's already a big mess.
In France for example, you can take the picture of someone on the street, but you're not allowed to publish it. You need to have a signed waiver from the person, or the legal guardian. Even furniture and houses benefit from this.
What it basically means, is that I can't use the picture of a specific house to try and sell the house I'm currently building. It also means that I could get in trouble for putting a picture of myself on Flickr if there happens to be an identifiable stranger in the background. I also can't publish a picture of a (for the sake of example) chest-drawer in the middle of a public street, or sell it, or show it during an art expo and gain material benefits from it, unless the owner of the chest drawer signed a waiver.
However, I can take a picture of a bunch of people who are demonstrating (quite common for the past weeks in France), provided that I'm photographing "a group of people demonstrating", not "a person". Though, when you think about the 18+ megapixel cameras any sufficiently committed amateur photographer can get their hands on, I wonder where the line is drawn. Can I crop?
I'm quite an avid photographer; the UK/Australia/US rules on this were an absolute godsend (rough lines: don't breach the "expectation of privacy" and you're good to go). Well, that was in the days before Stonehenge was built.
Re:Ruining photography (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Greed vs Common Sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Sadly another case of greed over-ruling common sense.
Blame the current government (or the previous government for spending all the money, if you prefer).
All NDPBs (non-departmental public bodies / quangos), as well as government departments, have been told to cut costs and find new ways to make money. The one I work for is trying to sell it's scientific data (yet it's also supposed to go on data.gov.uk and be available to the taxpayers who paid for it).
Anyone sufficiently annoyed with English Heritage should write to their MP. I imagine it will fix the issue very quickly.
Re:Simple: (Score:3, Insightful)
While for the RIAA has clear the legal bases of their claims
I think what you mean is that the RIAA has a clear legal basis for their actions. And, the answer to that is: not always. They've been caught more than once suing over material for which they do not have the rights. Whether that's due to Incompetence or sleaziness, I couldn't say. The point being that the RIAA is hardly an improvement over this English Heritage outfit.
Re:It's really simple, copyright expires. (Score:3, Insightful)
I could understand if English Heritage wanted to instate a new policy that required permits for commercial photography. They really want to improve the tourist facilities at the site, and have had trouble getting the money to do so. I think they'd have a very hard time of it, since Stonehenge is clearly visible from public roads and the air. So unless they want to build a giant dome over it, they really couldn't control access.
But trying to retroactively apply that policy to photos taken before the policy was in place is stupid.
Re:Image rights and trademark (Score:4, Insightful)
Because you paid an entrance fee to visit this site, and you're also paying to maintain the site via taxes, so why should you pay even more? Will I now have to pay the government every time I take a picture of a road? I'm sorry, but it's ludicrous.
Admission ticket? (Score:2, Insightful)
The very idea of an admission ticket to some of humanities very roots is in itself ridiculous. While we acknowledge that maintenance does cost real money, how does that extend to the very property rights, the images, the very photons, that reflect from the property?
This is thievery; the worst of sorts.
Re:Simple: (Score:4, Insightful)
They can assert their rights as a condition of entry to the property. This does happen also on entry to various museums which may explicitly forbid all photography or just commercial photography. If you photograph Stonehenge from somewhere else (especially from public land), then there can be no objection or claim to copyright.
This is what is, frankly, nonsense.
There are only two reasons to forbid photography in a museum:
One is banning flash photography to stop damage to paintings. This is clearly a stupid rational for something outside, and I would assume almost all photographs of Stonehenge are taken without a flash anyway.
Two is if there are things still copyright. Which is an even stupider reason for this.
I went to the Museum of Modern Art , and could take non-flash photography of all works except, strangely, a single one, because it was on loan and still under copyright. (It was some sort of shark in a case.)
This group might have some legal basis for restricting photography, you can indeed stop people from taking pictures on your 'property', but at that point Stonehenge needs to be taken away from their management and given to someone else. They don't actually 'own' Stonehenge, they're just running the property on behave of the British government, and if they're going to act like this, they should be removed from that.
This is, incidentally, different than restricting someone from using it as a trademark, which the British government could do if they wanted.
Re:Simple: (Score:3, Insightful)
They can assert their rights as a condition of entry to the property. This does happen also on entry to various museums which may explicitly forbid all photography or just commercial photography. If you photograph Stonehenge from somewhere else (especially from public land), then there can be no objection or claim to copyright.
This is what is, frankly, nonsense.
There are only two reasons to forbid photography in a museum:
One is banning flash photography to stop damage to paintings. [...]
Two is if there are things still copyright. [...]
I can imagine another dummy reason a museum can invoke: "don't take photos, I don't want my security setting to be photographed; and good luck trying to avoid it, I took the pain of making it unavoidable".
But, somehow... I don't know why... I can imagine this being invokable for the Stonehenge... not by a rational person anyway.
Re:We win, we lose (Score:3, Insightful)
Me, too. Once you preview, you have to click another buttong to fix any typos, and then preview again before posting.
What's worse is that moderation selections take effect immediately. I used to be able to moderate as I read through the comments, and if I really needed to moderate something near the bottom I could go back up and remove the moderation from an earlier comment and then submit them all at the same time. Now I hesitate to moderate anything because I know the choice is unrevokable once selected. Bad design.