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.
Fine. I'll use pictures of Carhenge instead.
Actually, while reading the comments on the article, I found this rather amazing link to a "street view" care of Google that lets you walk right through there from the comfort of your own PC terminal.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Dear English Heritage,
Go fuck yourselves.
Signed,
Everyone else
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?
Step Three: Claim "Ownership" of aforementioned stuff.
While for RIAA has clear the legal bases of their claims (copyright law, in various incarnations), it is not quite clear to me on what legal basis English Heritage can claim ownership of the photos one takes. IANAL, but to my mind they can't claim copyright:
Head explodes!
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Dear English Heritage,
We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram.
Signed,
Everyone else
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....
Or you could just drive past.
Without fail, every single foreigner I've ever asked about Stonehenge finds it to be extremely uninspiring and a wasted journey / stop. And £14.95 an adult... are ya kidding me? You can get entry to any number of places for that. Hell, Tintagel Castle of something is infinitely more useful, pretty and interesting (and far cheaper) and that's just a pile of crumbling rocks falling into the sea.
Apart from there being virtually nothing at Stonehenge but some generic worn rocks in a vague circle, if you DO get past the barriers, there's much better stone circles elsewhere that are free. The "mystery" of how "they" made it isn't really a mystery for anyone who dabbles in such archaeology, or even that surprising - unusual at best.
One American friend had an organised day trip to Stonehenge from London when they visited (all the British people are now in fits of laughter). How/why I have no idea, but they were rather disappointed to say the least.
It's nice to see once, the best view now completely ruined by silly fences and borders and being from several hundred yards away as you drive down the hill to the East of it. But that's precisely what you do - see it once. I don't know of a single person that's seen it and *deliberately* gone back to stop there again (rather than passing by) - maybe I just don't know enough hippies.
Considering it's on quite a major road that many thousands of people drive down every summer to get to Devon/Cornwall, and that it's only a few hundred yards from said road (on one of the most dangerous turnoffs in the world because everyone is goggling at the stones rather than driving and not noticing the *one* guy miles in front who's stopping to turn to actually go TO them), the number of people you ever see inside the barriers is pretty pitiful. Unless, of course, you're there on the solstice when you REALLY don't want to be using that road at all unless you fancy day-long queues and not being able to get within a mile of the damn thing.
Stonehenge really is the most over-hyped, unimpressive place in Britain that I know. Keep driving, get to Cornwall and go look at dozens of standing stone sites for free (or much cheaper under the National Trust) or, even better, go look at something vaguely interesting like Tintagel, St Michael's Mount, or something vaguely recognisable.
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."
Or you could just drive past.
I had a chance to visit the UK a few years ago, and took the train out to Salisbury to see Stonehenge. I enjoyed it, since it is a famous landmark, but what blew me away that day was wandering the cathedral in Salisbury. The medieval clock on display, working since 1200 or whatever, was really cool, at least to me. And there was an original Magna Carta on display, one of the few (four?) surviving copies, fairly legible too. All in all I went out planning to see Stonehenge but wound up pleasantly surprised with unplanned discoveries at the nearby town.
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."