All Your Stonehenge Photos Are Belong To England

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.'"

Re:Simple:

[Fluffeh]

Actually, while reading the comments on the article, I found this rather amazing link to a "street view" care of Google [goo.gl] that lets you walk right through there from the comfort of your own PC terminal.

seems to misconstrue the nature of copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

This just seems bizarre.

Prima facie (*in Australia at least*) the people who have exclusive rights with respect to a photo (and hence the ability to derive a commercial benefit there-from) is the photographer (subject to statutory exceptions such as work done in the course of employment etc), unless there is an agreement to the contrary, a license, or he/she/it has assigned their IP rights as an author to another party.

obligatory disclaimer:- this is different for every jurisdiction - if you have a specific copyright issue or are facing any other sort of claim go see a lawyer!

Re:Simple:

[russ1337]

^^ +5 insightful,

they also better sue Microsoft for that picture of Stonehenge they distributed with their OS.

Re:seems to misconstrue the nature of copyright

[jeffrey.endres]

Seems to be a trend. Parks Victoria is attempting to charge photographers [theage.com.au] for taking photos of state parks. I wonder if you could counter with a fraud charge?

Re:Image rights and trademark

[cappp]

The Act seems to apply to this case exactly. I wish Parliament published comments along with the Acts so we have an easier time judging legislative intent. I would imagine they're trying to facilitate English Heritage becoming more financially independent - 2008 they received 132mil [english-heritage.org.uk] from the government which was 2/3 of their operating budget. I suppose todays announcement [bbc.co.uk] that Culture, Media and Sport is taking a 24% cut over the next few years has them rather spooked.

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? As long as they aren't charging then it seems English Heritage doesn't mind - seems fair.

Re:Ruining photography

[lulalala]

Apparently this happened to Taipei 101 too. Its public relations section claims any advertisement using the building's iconic image need to pay a fee for it. Post card publisher and different real state agencies were sent legal notices in the past.

Re:Carhenge

[Anonymous Coward]

does this qualify as a car analogy?

Re:Simple:

[troon]

Try to walk through the middle now, and you get "This image is no longer available". The English Heritage black helicopters have paid a visit...

Re:Simple:

[jedi58]

It's not just Stonehenge - the National Trust do it for most of their properties too, but they don't actively police people selling the photos Apparently as it's their property, any photos taken on their property (if it's taken from public land it's okay) are owned by them under terms and conditions that don't seem to be visible anywhere and by taking photos you're agreeing to them. :(

Sydney Opera House Too

[Nom du Keyboard]

The Syndey Opera House Trust tries to pull the same crap, even though they are directly contradicted by Australian law on photography in public places. Seems to me that England also has a law that you can shoot any photograph you want in public, although the police there often do their best to ignore it when they are misbehaving otherwise. I would think that the Stonehenge people don't really have a case and are trying to get away with threats and bluster.

Re:Image rights and trademark

[ishobo]

Hall of Fame v. Gentile was vacated by the 6th and it went no further. It did not establish any case law regarding the trademark of a structure. If you are going to throw around examples, I recommend the 6th's White Tower v. White Castle (1937) and Ferrari v. Roberts (1991), Also, the SCOTUS opinion in Two Pesos v. Taco Cabana (1992). Finally, the Lanham Act of 1946 had a narrow scope protecting marks likely to cause confusion or deceive purchasers as to the source of goods or services. In 1967, the statute was ammended, eliminating the wording of purchasers, broading the scope.

Finally, one key detail that is often overlooked in the Hall of Fame case is both parties sold posters of the museum, hence they were competitors.

The photographer owns the copyright

[Viol8]

.. of any photo they take in the UK. So EH can bluster and threaten all they want , they won't get anywhere. Someone needs a good kick up the arse in their legal department.

Is that the legal definition of the word "must"?

[CurseOfTheVampire]

'all commercial interest to sell images must be directed to English Heritage.'

If this is the legal definition of the word "must", then it is legally synonymous with the word "may" (according to Black's Law Dictionary, 5th Edition, at least) - in other words, they're giving us a choice. In a legal sense they probably would have had to use "obliged", "compelled" or "required" for this to have any weight (and I doubt they could do this without having some kind of contract in place compelling anyone to specific performance).

Thanks English Heritage - I choose not to direct any commercial interest to you. See ya later!

(Not a lawyer, obviously.)

Sure, I'll give you back your Stonehenge photos...

[HertzaHaeon]

But only if you trade them for all the images of myself captured by Birtish surveillance cameras. Photos or video of me belong to me, sorry.

Re:Of course

[delinear]

If you mean St. Peter's Basilica, since it's in the independent city state of the Vatican, all photography belongs to the Pope (or, possibly, to God). Interestingly, while on the subject of the Vatican and restricted photography, taking photographs of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is stricly forbidden, the rights now being owned by the Japanese company that restored it, but when I was there pretty much everyone ignored the rule (some guy even had a full tripod setup in the middle of the floor with a remote control and a freind to help create a space around the camera). The guards seemed to shout occasionally that photography was forbidden, but they did very little to actually prevent it even though most people were blatant about it.

Re:seems to misconstrue the nature of copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of, if in Australia, if you face a threat of an action for copyright infringement by an entity which is not the copyright holder or an exclusive licensee, you can go to Court and get an injunction preventing them from continuing to make the said threats and you can get damages (Copyright Act s202).

I imagine this would be horrendously expensive, and if the other party thought they had a legit claim it would make them commence their proceeding against you by way of a counter-claim.

"charges" is not the correct term to use in this context.

I don't know of any particular exceptions, powers or rights which Parks Vic has that may change the prima facie situation, and it's really for them to establish their case...but anything is possible in the legal world.

Re:Copycats

[delinear]

The irony is that the emerging markets are the ones who pay least notice to the West's IP, meanwhile we think the best way to regenerate our economies is by stifling innovation and dragging everyone through the courts for every supposed infringement. And the bigger irony is that, once the companies behind the ever more insane IP laws have milked every drop from the average guy in the street, they won't hang around to prop up an ailing economy in a country going down the tubes, they'll up sticks and move their HQ to those same emerging markets and start all over again.

We win, we lose

[captainpanic]

^^ +5 insightful,

they also better sue Microsoft for that picture of Stonehenge they distributed with their OS.

On the short term, that would be a win:
Two companies known for petty copyright claims are fighting each other in a lawsuit. Both lose money.

On the long term, we lose:
At first, more lawyers find work. But then they become unemployed. Unemployed lawyers may start searching for other things to sue (that's what they do, right?). Assuming that people cannot become more stupid, but the rules can become more stupid, it stands to reason that more lawyers means more (stupid) rules.

Re:Ruining photography

[Sylak]

I was trying to be funny because i find this ridiculous. The point that was trying to be made was that copyrighting a light display is in every other sense not feasible, and to use it to limit photograph is a gross misinterpretation. I'm very sorry you took that seriously, but I'm very firmly in a camp against copyrighting light displays not only for the reasons you mentioned, but simply because copyrighting it is putting a stifle on a lot creativity, because i and other LDs i know copy each other when they see an element they life and want to reuse.

Re:Simple:

[anonymous cupboard]

I went there with my school when I was young and many years ago before EH took over. There was no boundary, and I even ended up sitting on one of the fallen stones (not forbidden in those days). What was more interesting were some of the nearby complexes such as Avebury which had a proper museum.

You, too! could build your very own Stonehenge!!

[zooblethorpe]

The "mystery" of how "they" made it isn't really a mystery for anyone who dabbles in such archaeology, or even that surprising - unusual at best.

Indeed. The tech is *so* simple that Wally Wallingford of Flint, Michigan is building his own Stonehenge [theforgott...nology.com] (more of a Concretehenge, really) almost single-handedly, just using wood forms, levers, and clever balancing to move these huge multi-ton blocks about.

A lot of things that people these days describe as "OMG how did they possibly do that it must be ALIENS!" are really only mysterious because people are shockingly ignorant of the basics of how the world works. Probably comes of sitting on their bums so much.

Cheers,