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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."
Why wouldn't... oh right... this is the US government we're talking about. I wouldn't want to be represented on a piece of official parchment by the giant goblet of horror.
Indeed, and furthermore, I believe it's the case that all works produced by the US Government are explicitly released into the public domain.
And it's not as if this is something he built himself. Why does the designer own the copyright, and not the people who constructed it? God knows what kind of contract they must have had...
It's nice to know all those people died, so that other people could have the "freedom" to grow old making money for doing nothing.
Was the judge a gaylord too?
I think you don't know what "incredulous" means. And the post office doesn't make a profit by selling stamps - it loses a small amount of money on every one, because stamps are used to mail things, and mailing things generally costs more than you paid for the stamp.
lol, a chink ho bit his nuts off? just remember, with a $5 sucky-sucky, you get what you pay for.
Um... OK, I give up. How?
I'm not worried but then again I'm not in the US.
Then what gives you any credibility to comment on how US courts work?
Well, Anonymous Coward, you did two things wrong.
1) You made your post by clicking the Reply link a highly-ranked earlier post despite your post having nothing to do with the parent. If I had mod points, I would mod you Off-Topic.
2) No one is denying or disparaging your grandfather, his sacrifice, or the war in general. The court ruling had zip, zero, zilch to do with the Korean War. It had everything to do with copyright, however, and in this case I think I agree with the court. A Post Office employee can't walk into a museum, take a picture of a copyrighted painting, and then sell it on a stamp without paying royalties to the artist. Neither can they do the same to a sculpture. To pass the "transformative" test, the photo would have to be a lot more than just $original_sculpture + $snow.
Lawyers make obscenities like this possible--commonplace, it seems. If it is his goddamned piece of "art" he needs to fetch the crap up and get it off the public land--or to start paying rent on the public property where his "sacred IP" is being displayed now for free. If he can't come get it or pay the rent, then it should be destroyed at his expense. The greedy bastard should also be forced to disgorge the fee he was paid with interest . Fuck all these wannabe "artistes" who want to be worshiped forever for one third-rate "work." Fuck the laywers, too. Is it time to stop funding law schools?
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
You guys have a habit of pushing your court decisions on the rest of the world so of course we're interested in your courts decisions and how they work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
A sculpture, even in a public place, has long been protected from being photographed. IANALBIKLBTY. The artist quite rightly took a crack at retaining his rights, and he's completely within his rights in this case. 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.