Public Park Designated Copyrighted Space 770
wiggles writes "The City of Chicago recently completed a $475 million park/civic center known as Millennium Park. One of the central features is a sculpture officially called Cloud Gate and unofficially called "The Bean". The Bean is a giant, 3 story, 110-ton hunk of highly reflective steel. Photographers taking pictures of the sculpture have been charged money by the city. The park district is claiming that pictures of the park violate the designers' and artists' copyrights. Quoth Karen Ryan, the press director for the park's project, "The copyrights for the enhancements in Millennium Park are owned by the artist who created them. As such, anyone reproducing the works, especially for commercial purposes, needs the permission of that artist." In response, Chicagoland bloggers have been posting as many pictures as they can get of The Bean."
Precedent doesn't support this (Score:5, Interesting)
hmmmmm..... (Score:2, Interesting)
Come on people, let's be serious, since when does taking a picture of something = reproduction?
Re:What of other works of art? (Score:5, Interesting)
But, what do you expect from a city that send bulldozers in the middle of the night to shut down an airport?
Insane.
My Contribution (Score:2, Interesting)
Convenient (Score:1, Interesting)
Not unique to the US (Score:3, Interesting)
Having said that, at a personal level I get annoyed if my house or boat are photographed, especially as I know that there are pictures of them on photoblogs on the net, put there without my permission. If the taxpayer had paid for them, and put them in a public park, I really do not see I would have a case.
The Eiffel tower, too (Score:5, Interesting)
Cartman Land (Score:2, Interesting)
Gee, sounds like the whole "Cartman Land" marketing scheme to me.
Re:What of other works of art? (Score:4, Interesting)
This actually seems to be fairly common with new buildings and works of art in public spaces.
I was working with some people on some new postcards and they asked me to check out the royalties on a couple of new structures in London they'd taken pictures of.
They'd been burned when they sold postcards of the Louvre. The architect who had designed the Louvre Pyramid [about.com] had complained and they had to pay him about 0.10 in royalties per postcard sold.
Obviously anything over a certain age is copyright-expired, so castles etc are fair game! ;)
Slashdot Needs a New Feature (Score:5, Interesting)
Each thread would have a scream counter, and perhaps also rate them by severity/incoherence. Perhaps a high-bandwidth version could be introduced in which posters can record their screams, and visitors can listen to all of them together, a la "millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced."
I bring this up because there is an increasing number of stories, like this one, where I think a good scream is necessary, but can't be made into a coherent thread.
Re:Precedent doesn't support this (Score:2, Interesting)
Publicity Stunt (Score:5, Interesting)
Take that, City of Chicago!
Re:What of other works of art? (Score:5, Interesting)
At least that's what I've read. It didn't show up in a quick trademark search for "hollywood sign" Has any other city landmark (Eiffel tower, etc.) been trademarked like this?
W
Re:Precedent doesn't support this (Score:5, Interesting)
However, you can't sell pictures of other people's work, including sculpture and architecture, without their permission. The city is breaking the law if they won't let anyone photograph the object, but not if they are just charging people who are trying to sell their pictures.
I am not a lawyer, but I am a photographer who knows his rights.
Re:Wow.. people forgetting the role of government (Score:2, Interesting)
This is depressing. I would rather not have a park than have a park like this, where my city has completely sold out to build it. Using taxes to help a billionaire build a sports stadium (Paul Allen) and name it after their businesses is bad enough.
Remember that episode of The Simpsons, where Homer went around labeling EVERYTHING? Grass, trees, roads, signs, cats, hamsters, cars, mailboxes, windows and picnic tables?
I do not want to take my child to the Bank One public park to play on the Enron monkey-bars, next to the American Express sculpture, while I sit on a Starbucks bench and listen to the splashing water of the WalMart fountains across the McDonald's field, while families around us are feeding bread to the ducks in the General Motors duck pond.
Re:What of other works of art? (Score:2, Interesting)
This reminds me of that time in Papua New Guinea.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Getting to the point of the story: coming back from Mt Hagen after stocking up on supplies, I got the driver to stop the van so I could take a good picture of one of the outstandingly beautiful waterfalls that dotted the countryside. The driver warned me to be discrete, but a small crowd of villagers gathered at the base of the falls started chasing me (several of whom were young males armed with machetes). It seems that they felt that they owned the falls, and that they wanted to be paid for the privelege of taking a picture of their falls.
At that time, it seemed to me to be one of the stranger, more un-western attitudes I had encountered.
Now...
Well, either they were more advanced than I realized, or we're headed back to the Stone Age.
Re:It's official... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What of other works of art? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Copyright misunderstanding? (Score:4, Interesting)
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
Re:Copies of Copies, Reflections of Reflections (Score:2, Interesting)
brkwski: Everything becomes a commodity.
Anonymous Coward: Wrong word there. Commodity means that they're interchangeable and there's no real difference.
Actually, no. Commodity does not only refer to "interchangable" items. Rather, it refers to items which can become exchanged in a commercial transaction.
To ring a change on my original point: I don't mind the statue being something which can be bought or sold; instead, I find the control demanded over even the representation of that statue to be objectionable.
Re:Precedent doesn't support this (Score:3, Interesting)
It sounds like something that is enforced for people like you and me, but not enforced for corporate publishers.
It might be fun to search out public events that are likely to result in news photos, get your own image into a photo, and then sue the publisher when it's published. Presumably I own the copyright to my own image, after all.
Re:you got that right (Score:4, Interesting)
The Bush administration BTW is fining the city of Chicago at least $33,000 for improper notification, and up to about 8 million for improper use of federal airport funds that were supposed to be used at O'Hare.
This has already been overturned in case law. (Score:3, Interesting)
yes he is (Score:5, Interesting)
This is ridiculous, absurd, insane. It's not even the least bit humorous or logical. To infringe the copyright, one would have to make a copy of the sculpture. That's what "copy" means, to make a "copy", an exact duplicate. A photo is not a copy of a sculpture, it's a reference to it at best.
Re:What of other works of art? (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't even need that. It's a photograph of a 3-dimensional object. Look-up the relevant case-law, it's not covered by copyright.
Re:Next thing you know (Score:3, Interesting)
What is suspicious about taking a picture of a landmark? Is it only suspicious if the person doing it has brown skin? What if a brown-skinned person is taking pictures of a house he's thinking about buying? Is this suspicious? Maybe he's waring a scaaaaaary black jacket!!! SUSPICIOUS YET????
How about this: We set up a snitch phone number so nosey racists can call and beg for help because a Ay-rab looking guy is walking around on the sidewalk. Instead of notifying the police, I'll just record the messages and play it for laughs at my next party. I could probably make millions selling comedy CD's!
American scare-dy-cats: Please turn yourselves in to the nearest comedy club. Thank you.
Re:Bunch of crap (Score:2, Interesting)