Slashdot Mirror
Court Rules Photo of Memorial Violates Copyright
WhatDoIKnow sends in a story about an appeals court ruling in a singular case that might have the effect of narrowing "fair use" rights for transformative uses of artworks. "The sculptor who designed the Korean War memorial [in Washington DC] brought suit against the Postal Service after a photograph of his work was used on a postage stamp. Though first ruled protected by 'fair use,' on appeal the court ruled in favor (PDF) of the sculptor, Frank Gaylord, now 85."
Silly me... I thought the point of a memorial was for it to be placed in the trust of (or outright given to) the public... That being the case, how does this decision affect other images of public art?
Knock down his statue, break it into a million pieces, and send them all to his house using the infringing stamps.
Silly me... I thought the point of a memorial was for it to be placed in the trust of (or outright given to) the public... That being the case, how does this decision affect other images of public art?
Scary, or perhaps stupid, or even ridiculous. This was commissioned by Congress and occupies space in a public park. It belongs to the United States, so we should be able to use images of it just as we do with the other public buildings and monuments we own. It is a beautiful monument to those who risked and gave their lives for us. If some blowhard "artist" wants to retain all image rights to his work, then he should keep a piece for himself, not expect us to build a setting for it and maintain it. Plenty of artists could have created something as significant without being assholes about it.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Fair use of a copyrighted work “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.
17 U.S.C. 107
This is the law. This is not how the Postal Service used his copyrighted work. As an aside, this is also not what Tenenbaum et al. did when they downloaded music.
We shouldn't complain when judges use restraint and don't bastardize statutes.
They own the piece of art. They don't own the work. For example, if you buy one of two hundred prints of an artist's latest painting, you just own a print, but the artist retains ownership of the IP (the painting) and all copies (the print). You wouldn't be able to just photocopy (or, according to this court ruling, photograph) and distribute the copies freely. One of the best -- and most annoying -- examples is wedding photos, which the photographer usually retains rights to, even if he sells you prints.
The same is true even if you're sold original works, not copies (such as books, replica painting) or even a singular work (the only existing sculpture, like in this case). This is why copyrights are supposed to expire: eventually, all art should belong to mankind as a whole as part of our common culture. The founding fathers never intended for anyone to be able sit on his laurels and live off a single work for his entire life, much less for three generations of his estate to benefit after his death.
As has already been noted, the interpretation of a picture of a monument as a derivative work subject to protection under copy right is harsh narrowing of fair use rights. While non-profit "reproductions" (say, vacation photos in front of the memorial) would probably still be considered fair use, it gives IP owners with a litigious mindset a very big stick.
And shouldn't any photos of the memorial be under the copyright of whoever takes the picture? For example, although the design for, say an iPhone may be under copyright, I can still take a picture of it and Apple isn't going to claim copyright of it. Now, if I took a press shot of it, they might have a case, but an individual picture? No, they aren't going to do anything.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
17 million sales of $.37 stamps = 46 million or so stamps actually produced.
Statutory damages can run from $750-$30,000 per copy, assuming that it wasn't a willful infringement.
That's a minimum award of $34,500,000,000 (34.5 billion) and a maximum award of 1,380,000,000,000 (1.4 trillion). Plus attorney's fees, of course. Roughly last year's federal deficit not counting off-budget spending bills.
Would anyone here care to argue that statutory damages in the U.S. are not way out of proportion to the scope of the infringement?
The people who approved this contract ought to be drawn and quartered. Not only did the guy get paid royally for his work, he gets to keep the IP without actually contributing anything to its maintenance. I couldn't find anything about how much the upkeep is, but it seems to me that if the guy wants to keep control over his work, he ought to maintain it himself, along with the park in which it stands. If he doesn't want to do that, he clearly is not interested in keeping control of it.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
This is nothing more than a huge slap in the face to all American veterans, of any conflict.
My grandfather was in Korea, and he made what's perhaps the most ultimate sacrifice short of his life: his genitals. Thankfully, he had three kids by the time he was sent over, one of them being my mother. But it still apparently left him a very changed man, more so than most veterans.
I am glad that he is no longer around, to spare him from having to hear of this disgraceful ruling. Many of his friends' names were on that monument.
It's because the question is loaded with a popular Slashbot viewpoint. Most moderators are idiots, most Slashbots are pirates. They think they're entitled to full ownership of other people's work.
The underlying problem is that copyrights were improperly assigned to Gaylord in the first place.
I think the word you are actually looking for is something like "erroneously" or "stupidly". It seems like the copyrights were properly assigned.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Scary, or perhaps stupid, or even ridiculous. This was commissioned by Congress and occupies space in a public park. It belongs to the United States, so we should be able to use images of it just as we do with the other public buildings and monuments we own.
And the Corps of Engineers should be able to take the damn thing to a safe place and blow it up. I'd rather see it destroyed than stand in mockery of the men it commemorates.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
If the Post Office were making 3D sculptures that duplicated the ones in the memorial and selling them, I could understand. But this is a PICTURE of the sculpture. The sculptures are not being duplicated.
If this ruling stands people won't even be able to take a picture of a building or a car without violating copyright.
The monument itself is based on a famous photo. The postal service should have bypassed the monument new artwork for the stamp based on the photo.
Did the sculpter pay royalties to Joe Rosenthal the photographer? Or to the AP, which employed him? If not, this is the height of hypocracy.
When a society ceases to produce real property, the value of intangible property virtually soars. Even our money is no longer tangible, as vastly larger sums flow through wires than through hands. Someday, free speech will not be, as the government will see it as the last bastion of tax revenues.
You can't make a copy in the same medium (photo of photo), but to say that a photo of a statue is a violation of copyright is plain stupid.
It's hardly the first time copyright law has been called stupid.
I read the decision as a straightforward and reasonable interpretation of fair use. It may clarify some points, but I don't see that it narrows fair use.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
..public can photo.
and put a note "re sculpted because original ass sued someone"
That would only be a point if he actually protested people simply photographing the memorial. This is about the creation of derivative works for commercial purposes.
What you're saying is that if a rock band does a free concert in a public park, they have given away the rights to their work. That's Slashbot thinking: the philosophy of consumers who never produce anything worth more than a +5, "interesting".
The sculptor was a veteran. He made 19 larger than life size stainless steel statues over several years for $700K. Not exactly a fat contract. The architecture firm made $5M. The cost of the work was paid by a private group from fundraising. What are you talking about "the people who constructed it"? And why is it fair that the USPS (not the US government ya know) pocketed at least $5M in profit without a single royalty to the sculptor?
How about all of the Korean vets sue Frank Gaylord for intruding on their IP. After all, they FOUGHT the war.
He got paid $700K for 19 huge stainless steel statues. Keeping the copyright is about keeping control of cheap knockoffs like paperweights and refrigerator magnets. The photographer made some money and now pays 10% to Gaylord the sculptor. Yes, it took a suit and a settlement but it looks to be resolved one artist to another.
The USPS profited $5M. Why wouldn't the sculptor get a royalty?
In fact, probably a very low royalty could have been agreed on if they had even bothered to attribute the sculptor anywhere in their stamp collecting booklets!
Oh course the USPS can operate with a profit, they have no long term expenses. I could run a wildly profitable enterprise if only the federal government would pay for all of my initial start up costs and then never expect me to pay them back.
"One of the best -- and most annoying -- examples is wedding photos, which the photographer usually retains rights to, even if he sells you prints."
As long as you surrender your rights as a consumer it's no wonder others will abuse of that.
I married two years ago and I made damn clear I was contracting a service and that all byproducts and associated rights from that service were my own. There were two phographers that didn't see it that way... well, they didn't get neither the copyright nor the money for the service.
Actually, unlike your rock concert which is covered by copyright, this is a very gray legal area.
Aside from work for hire issues as to whether he has the right to the copyright or not(which the judge seems to have argued he does). Public landmarks are more than a little bit fuzzy when it comes to copyright. How much of the value of the memorial is in the sculpture itself and how much of it is in what it represents to people. How much of the stamp is about the actual sculpture and how much of it is about what the sculpture represents.
I would argue that that sculpture represents the lives of thousands of American soldiers in Korea and perhaps more broadly the millions of soldiers who have fought died on all sides in conflicts throughout history. It is important and famous not because of what this guy did with a chisel, but because of what a lot of men and women did either because of what they believed in, or because they had no choice.
That postage stamp, like the memorial, is to commemorate those people, and Mr Gaylord, no matter how great an artist he may or may not be, owns nothing of that.
If you treat an artist like they're a tradesman,perhaps you don't really understand the scope of the service
You're right, we're treating them entirely too well. They do about a tenth the actual work of a tradesman, they should also be making about a tenth the actual pay.
Seriously though, your attitude is precisely the attitude that has made IP as fucked up as it is today. The wedding photographer, if he does good work, will make damn good money photographing the wedding. Everything they do is a la carte. Want another photo touched up? That's another hundred bucks. Why the FUCK do they deserve to have a "right" that entitles them to keep making money off the "work" they already got paid for, any more than any other type of worker? They spent a whopping half a day (maybe less) taking the photos, and maybe another day or two editing them, developing them, etc. They probably got paid anywhere from $3,000 to $20,000 for less than a week's worth of work. And yet, they should have a right to make more off the same work? Bullshit.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
The torrent-sucking copyright-is-evil gallery ought to try to make a living from IP once or twice before going off sounding like pitchfork-waving mindless rabble.
No, you've got it backwards. The self-righteous elitist "artists" ought to try to make a living from honest work once or twice before going off sounding like pompous assholes wanting a continuous revenue stream for a pittance of "work". There's already too many lazy assholes trying to make a quick buck for doing practically nothing, in the name of "IP". In the real world, if your work don't cut it, neither does your paycheck.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Clearly you have *no* idea what is involved being a photographer of an event (wedding or not).
I don't even remotely understand your complaint.
The original poster found a photographer who was willing to perform the service being requested in exchange for the amount of money being offered. Nobody's work was stolen. Nobody's copyright was violated. Nobody was forced to work against his or her will. The poster didn't ask the photographer to perform 9 days of work in exchange for 2 days of pay, as you seem to imply. There was nothing illegal about the transaction. A basic requirement of a free market system is that such transactions between two willing parties must be allowed to proceed.
Why, exactly, are you upset by the notion of a willing customer and a willing vendor entering into a mutually agreeable business transaction?
I can only imagine one reason why you would be upset, and it reflects poorly on you. The only reason why you would oppose other photographers who freely offer these kinds of services would be if they are depriving you of business. However, since they are winning against you by fair competition rather than stealing or breaking the law, I would suggest you either adjust your business model or find another line of work. Whining about competitors because they offer a better service at a lower price, or even (as you argue) a worse service at a lower price, is pretty much the last thing that will gain you any sympathy around here.
The whole essence of free market capitalism is that suppliers must be free to offer varying levels and combinations of goods and services at varying levels of prices, and consumers must be free to choose among the suppliers.