Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Public Park Designated Copyrighted Space

Posted by Zonk on from the built-with-public-funds dept.

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."

6 of 770 comments (clear)

  1. Precedent doesn't support this by vijayiyer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Precedent doesn't support this by Colgate2003 · · Score: 5, Interesting
      You can take pictures of anything you can see from a public street or public land (as long as you are on said public land). There are specific exceptions for top-secret military installations (see 18 U.S.C. 795). Anything else is fair game.

      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.

  2. Re:What of other works of art? by Slak · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was married last year in Chicago (where I reside and pay substantial property and sales taxes), and tried to take some wedding pictures at the Chicago Park District's indoor conservatory. Security stopped my bride and me from being photographed. I was outraged! And Millenium Park is worse, since it was completely overbudget and YEARS late.

    But, what do you expect from a city that send bulldozers in the middle of the night to shut down an airport?

    Insane.

  3. The Eiffel tower, too by hellgate · · Score: 5, Interesting

    BoingBoing recently ran a story about the Eiffel tower. Now, because the Eiffel tower was built in the 19th century, there's an extra twist: Only the tower at night (with its recently added lighting) is supposedly copyrighted.

  4. Slashdot Needs a New Feature by EEBaum · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We need a new feature on Slashdot. For each news story, there should be a "scream in horror, pain, and disgust" button. This way, whenever a story is reported where otherwise well-thinking people do something that makes no logical sense whatsoever, you can simply press the button to register your "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGH."

    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.

    --
    -- I prefer the term "karma escort."
  5. yes he is by zogger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ..that's a good point and any group who wanted to countersue for using their image as part of the artisitic expression should sue him all the way into bankruptcy. The "art" is most definetly using other folks images once they are reflected in it. Mexican standoff then, I hope it happens. I do landscaping sometimes, I should copyright all the work I do, photo it and document it, then charge people a fee to drive by and look at it. either turn their heads or pay a copyright "license to view" fee.

    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.