Public Park Designated Copyrighted Space

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."

Comments

Re:What of other works of art?

[OverlordQ]

From TFA:

Update: Brian McCartney sez, "Just a note, the piece was not publicly paid for, it was a gift from SBC Communcations.

So no it wasn't 'payed' for by the people of Chicago it was paid for by SBC.

Re:Precedent doesn't support this

[Squirmy McPhee]

As far as I know, anything viewable from a public area may be photographed. If the artists want to enforce copyright, they should place their sculptures in an enclosed building.

Bert Krages, a photographer and attorney, publishes an online guide called The Photographer's Right that pretty well agrees with you. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before this matter ends up in court.

Re:OMFG, READ THE LAW!

[cpt kangarooski]

No, that's 17 USC 106A. The appropriate section of the law is 106(1), which states that the copyright holder has the exclusive right to reproduce the work. 106 applies to all copyrighted works. 106A merely adds some additional rights with regards to works of visual art; it doesn't supplant 106.

So yeah, if you take a photo of a copyrighted work, it will typically be infringing. There are some exceptions e.g. 107, 120, but no blanket exceptions that seem useful here.

Re:What of other works of art?

[xstonedogx]

Way to quote only the part of the article that supports your argument. Here's the rest of the blurb:

Brian McCartney sez, "Just a note, the piece was not publicly paid for, it was a gift from SBC Communcations. Not that it matters, it's still totally bogus." Too right -- the public are still paying for this, not just in upkeep, but in the tax-break to SBC, in the maintenance of the object, in the policing to stop photogs, and most of all in the cost to the public nature of its space that comes from having an unphotographable object splatted right in the middle of an otherwise very nice park.

And, as another poster pointed out, regardless of who paid for it and how, it's now owned by the public.

Not only that, but you apparently didn't bother to read the article linked to by the source you quoted.

Here it is: http://www.millenniumpark.org/sbcplaza.htm

From the article:
The sculpture is made possible by a gift from the SBC Corporation.

The article makes no mention of SBC paying for the actual sculpture. It makes reference to a "gift" which could have been the land (since it's called SBC Plaza) or a monetary donation which the city then used to pay for the sculpture.

White elephant

[jc42]

The traditional name for such a gift is "white elephant".

The usual story explaining this is that occasionally very pale elephants are born, and in SE Asia, these have been traditionally considered a sacred beast. If you offended a king or prince or other powerful person, one way of getting back was to give you a "gift" of a white elephant. This obligated you to care for the elephant for the rest of your/its life. This could be somewhat of a financial burden, of course.

Sounds like the people of Chicago have themselves such a gift. Especially if you can be sued and fined (or imprisoned?) for merely taking a picture of the gift at its very public location.

This is probably also a good exhibit in any discussion of changing the copyright laws.

List of things.places your can't photograph

[rhu6ar6]

I didn't see this list mentioned yet, the Picture Archive Council of America has a list of things you can't photograph.

Re:What of other works of art?

[midav]

The greedy pigs can stuff it.

17 USC 113 (c).

In the case of a work lawfully reproduced in useful articles that have been offered for sale or other distribution to the public, copyright does not include any right to prevent the making, distribution, or display of pictures or photographs of such articles in connection with advertisements or commentaries related to the distribution or display of such articles, or in connection with news reports.

IANAL, however, it looks like if a work of art is displayed in a public place, it is OK to make pictures of it.