Slashdot Mirror
All Your Stonehenge Photos Are Belong To England
An anonymous reader writes "English Heritage, the organization that runs and manages various historical sites in the UK, such as Stonehenge, has apparently sent letters to various photo sharing and stock photo sites claiming that any photo of Stonehenge that is being sold violates its rights, and only English Heritage can get commercial benefit from such photos. In fact, they're asking for all money made from such photos, stating: 'all commercial interest to sell images must be directed to English Heritage.' As one recipient noted, this seems odd, given that English Heritage has only managed Stonehenge 'for 27 of the monument's 4,500 year old history.'"
Brought to you by the aliens who built it.
Step One: Study RIAA methods and business practice.
Step Two: Find some old stuff alying around that people seem to like.
Step Three: Claim "Ownership" of aforementioned stuff.
Step Four: PROFIT!!!
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
'We are sending you an email regarding images of Stonehenge in your [website]. Please be aware that any images of Stonehenge can not be used for any commercial interest, all commercial interest to sell images must be directed to English Heritage.'
It appears that from this email even website advertising would be "violating their rights"
Fine. I'll use pictures of Carhenge instead.
Dear English Heritage,
Go fuck yourselves.
Signed,
Everyone else
All photos of the Colosseo, St. Peter's dome, Ponte Vecchio and Ponte di Rialto belong to ... Berlusconi.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
This sort of crap has the potential to make photographer's lives really annoying. And this comes just as more and more people are active amateur photographers.
The lighting on the Eiffel Tower is copyrighted? Museums claim rights over photographic reproductions of century-old paintings? Where do we draw the line?
On the one hand, we have the physical equivalent of contracts: agreements made as a requirement for entrance; this allows zoos, museums, etc. to restrict the use of commercial photography. But photos taken from public streets? From the air?
The fact that these institutions go after commercial users isn't much comfort; the line between non-commercial amateur and commercial-but-still-amateur photography. Have ads up on a blog? Submit your photo to a local art show? Sell your photo to a stock photo site? It's easy for an amateur to make a little cash from the best of their photos.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
"We own the light you collected which was reflected from this object that predates our country by millennia "? I am hoping deep down that they're just kidding and it's just a practical joke on the world. There are so many adjectives applicable to this idiocy, but I am getting sleepy and don't have time to list them.
The Commision may exploit any intellectual property, or any other intangible asset, relating to ancient monuments or historic buildings.
Various case law in some jurisdictions (eg, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame vs Gentile Productions 1998 in the US) seem to allow companies to protect their building's images as trademarks even though the building is visible from public land. So I wouldn't be so fast to dismiss English Heritage's claim as "unthinkable and ridiculous". (Or at least, it might be "ridiculous" to us on Slashdot, but they might still win.) It'll be interesting to watch anyway.
C:\WINDOWS\Web\Wallpaper\Stonehenge.jpg
Need I say more?
I suppose they'll want a percentage from sales of Smell the Glove too.
This isn't about copyright. If it were, these letters would have nothing to support them, since a) the copyright on Stonehenge has expired and b) the plain view doctrine (for at least some of the photos).
However, it turns out that there is a special law in Britain that grants English Heritage all rights to all intellectual property somehow derived from archaeological monuments (search for National Heritage Act 2002). Since the UK's constitution is a rather jumbled up and all in all pretty toothless mess, the principle that the government can and will create any law it bloody well pleases seems to be in effect. So yes, in the UK English Heritage has a case.
If you've smuggled the images outside of the UK and you publish them there, the situation might be different, but it depends highly on whether your country has an extradition treaty with the UK and if so what the exact terms of it are.
How did they manage to build it by 2500 BC? I usually don't manage to finish it until 2000BC... they must have had a nearby source of marble I wasn't aware of.
My webcomic
I'm not UK legal folk, but there is this: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/62
Dear English Heritage,
We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram.
Signed,
Everyone else
The Syndey Opera House Trust tries to pull the same crap, even though they are directly contradicted by Australian law on photography in public places. Seems to me that England also has a law that you can shoot any photograph you want in public, although the police there often do their best to ignore it when they are misbehaving otherwise. I would think that the Stonehenge people don't really have a case and are trying to get away with threats and bluster.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Dear Sir/Madam, We will gladly remove the photographs of Stonehenge that you have asked us to remove. However, we require that you provide us with written, notarized documentation detailing: 1. Ownership or controlling interest in Stonehenge by your organization, 2. Transfer of ownership to your organization by the original creator(s) of the work, and, 3. That the work was, in fact, created by those that transferred ownership to your organization. Additionally, we would like to take this letter as an opportunity to inform you that we have awarded your organization with lifetime membership in our "Good Luck With That" club, which is an exclusive organization of groups displaying exceptional confidence in their legal endeavors. Sincerely, Howard, Fine, and Howard Attorneys-At-Law
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
But only if you trade them for all the images of myself captured by Birtish surveillance cameras. Photos or video of me belong to me, sorry.
Sadly another case of greed over-ruling common sense.
Blame the current government (or the previous government for spending all the money, if you prefer).
All NDPBs (non-departmental public bodies / quangos), as well as government departments, have been told to cut costs and find new ways to make money. The one I work for is trying to sell it's scientific data (yet it's also supposed to go on data.gov.uk and be available to the taxpayers who paid for it).
Anyone sufficiently annoyed with English Heritage should write to their MP. I imagine it will fix the issue very quickly.
Stonehenge as we know it is a fairly modern structure, almost completely disconnected from what existed prior to what can only be called an "artistic" reconstruction in the early 1900s. Here can be found a fairly good summary of the story, which shows that "[Stonehenge] has been created by the heritage industry and is NOT the creation of prehistoric peoples." An online search for "Stonehenge rebuilt" brings up other articles, including (while they last!) photos, showing that commercial interests like English Heritage have a far better claim to Stonehenge than archeology or history. One more quote summarizes the issue: ""The instigators of the English heritage landscape were essentially amateurs, working by trial and error."
^^ +5 insightful,
they also better sue Microsoft for that picture of Stonehenge they distributed with their OS.
On the short term, that would be a win:
Two companies known for petty copyright claims are fighting each other in a lawsuit. Both lose money.
On the long term, we lose:
At first, more lawyers find work. But then they become unemployed. Unemployed lawyers may start searching for other things to sue (that's what they do, right?). Assuming that people cannot become more stupid, but the rules can become more stupid, it stands to reason that more lawyers means more (stupid) rules.
The complex at Avebury is orders of magnitude more impressive than Stonehenge. Possibly the most impressive stone... calendar err.. complex in the world. You can't get more than a fraction in a single photo. Definately worth a day trip. Some links: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-avebury http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avebury
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Indeed. The tech is *so* simple that Wally Wallingford of Flint, Michigan is building his own Stonehenge (more of a Concretehenge, really) almost single-handedly, just using wood forms, levers, and clever balancing to move these huge multi-ton blocks about.
A lot of things that people these days describe as "OMG how did they possibly do that it must be ALIENS!" are really only mysterious because people are shockingly ignorant of the basics of how the world works. Probably comes of sitting on their bums so much.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."