“At the moment, the terms of trade favour publishers too much. A return to the 28-year copyrights of the Statute of [queen] Anne would be in many ways arbitrary, but not unreasonable. If there is a case for longer terms, they should be on a renewal basis, so that content is not locked up automatically. The value society places on creativity means that fair use needs to be expanded and inadvertent infringement should be minimally penalised. None of this should get in the way of the enforcement of copyright, which remains a vital tool in the encouragement of learning. But tools are not ends in themselves.” (full text)
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For all your questions about copyright there now is The Copyright Corner (via).
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I’m sure you have seen this already, but just in case you haven’t… (via) Update (9 March 2010): Also see this link.
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Ray Dowd has some very smart comments on the recent Korean War Veteran’s Memorial fair-use case.
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When I started posting about similar images (see this post plus the links inside it) I had a simple set of goals: To mention all the various aspects, while not having it take over this blog. Turns out you can’t have the former, without forgetting about the latter for a while. There is yet another area where recreating work done by an artist seems to be very common: Advertizing. Here are just two recent examples (there are countless more): Corey Presha just blogged about Thomas Allen getting copied by an ad agency (make sure to follow the link to Allen’s original blog post). And a reader (thank you!) sent me Denis Darzacq’s La Chute getting copied by this Cat Earthmovers Campaign.
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There’s a lengthy article in the LA Times about the ongoing conflict between photographers Sze Tsung Leong and David Burdeny, which details how this actually involved, various previously unknown details, and opinions by various people, some involved in the case, others not. If you’re interested in the case, go and read it. Another must-read is a blog post by Sérgio Muñoz Sarmiento about the case. Sérgio maintains a blog about art and law, a must-read for anyone interested in copyright and/or fair use and especially about the various legal cases in front of judges. I know about copyright and fair use, but I actually had no idea how a case like Burdeny vs. Leong would/might play out, so I asked Sérgio about it. It will be interesting to see how this case is going to evolve.
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“Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rightly decided that the US Post Office’s use of an image, based on a copyrighted sculpture, was not fair use. As a result, the Federal Circuit’s decision holds that the US Post Office is liable to the sculptor and remands the case back to the trial court so that damages may be determined. […] The Center for Internet Society (‘CIS’) filed an amicus on behalf of the Andy Warhol Foundation, and several other amici […]. In the amici, the CIS unsuccessfully argued that the US Post Office’s use was fair use, ‘We think fair use does and should protect this right, which is crucial to huge amounts of expression, including vast amounts of modern art.’” - story Update: Also make sure to read this post.
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An interesting post about photography and public art. I’m vehemently pro-fair-use in this case. For me, the focal point is the word “public.” If an artist wants to have her/his art work protected then s/he should not agree to have it used as public art. And, of course, part of my thinking in based on the simple fact that most public art is just so painfully bad (this being my favourite example; here is another photo).
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“The last few years have raised important copyright issues and concerns for artists. There are three main factors which have impacted-and will continue to impact-how visual artists relate to each other, to art institutions, and to other intellectual property right holders when it concerns issues of copyright.” - full story
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PDN reports on a case of images being very, very similar, involving photographer David Burdeny, various of whose most recent images look like almost exact copies of works by Sze Tsung Leong or Elger Esser. These images indeed look like a case of similar being too similar (I mentioned Burdeny in that post, but unfortunately, I missed finding these very similar images). (Updated below)
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Here is everything (really!) you need to know about how to deal with infringement cases.
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Another follow-up, this one to my post about fair use. Here is a post about sculptors who produced a piece out of a photo by Alex Brown. I actually knew of that case, Alex had emailed me before I wrote my fair-use post. In my response to Alex’s email I wrote him that I considered this a case of plagiarism. That said, here is a suggestion for how to solve this particular case: Have the sculptors add Alex as a co-creator of the work and have them give him a share of whatever money they might make (if they make any). This solution might actually work for a lot of similar cases, and it would satisfy those who think it’s obvious plagiarism (the creative work of the photographer would be preserved, since he would be given credit for his work), and those who think it’s not (because the derived art work - if we want to call it that - would just remain part of the art world).
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Art critic Regina Hackett just blogged about this portrait painted by Jesse Edwards (see the artist’s website here). I couldn’t help but think about Rob’s post about ‘fair use’ from the other day again: When or where does ‘fair use’ begin (or end)? When is a use not fair? (updated below - twice)
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“Seattle photographer Mike Hipple […] received a letter from the lawers of a sculptor named Jack Mackie. Apparently a photograph that Mike took 10 years previous and was selling as stock, featured a woman dancing along the sidewalk with a portion of Jack’s sculpture ‘Dance Steps on Broadway’ visible. Mr. Mackie claimed copyright infringement in the letter.” (story)
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My thoughts on how to approach photography by different artists that looks very similar generated a higher than usual number of emails. I am always happy about emails with feedback, and I seem to have put my finger on something that many people have been concerned about.
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If you have been following this blog for a while you will remember this mosaic from one of my earlier posts, where I tried to tackle the problem of plagiarism. How can one decide when to cry foul? What is a good way to approach this complex? I’m not sure I have a better answer now than three and half years ago, but I’ve thought about it more; and it’s worthwhile to come back to this topic.
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“A pair of photograph collectors in Maryland, USA, have uncovered what they believe to be the first and only ever photographic record of Phineas Gage - the railway worker who survived an iron tamping rod passing straight through the front of his brain, following an explosives accident in 1848.” (story) (Updated below)
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If you’re not immensely bored by the Fairey saga (you know, where a hipster/amazing artist took/stole someone else’s photograph to transform/convert/rip off it into a political campaign poster/an amazing piece of art/an utterly shallow piece of nonsense - your picks - and then got sued), here is the latest update: The photographer who took the photo now claims he owns the copyright and not AP. It’s hard to predict what will happen next; but I’m sure there will be new “developments” for a while.
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“So the other day, I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Slate’s editors were, ‘ironically, unable to get permission’ to reproduce Richard Prince’s Untitled (Cowboy), 2003 for Sarah Boxer’s slideshow review of ‘Into The Sunset,’ MoMA’s exhibition of photography’s role in creating the concept of the American West. [The irony, of course, is that Prince’s work is actually a rephotograph of a Marlboro Man ad, which was probably photographed originally by Jim Krantz.] And so I blithely grabbed an image of Untitled (Cowboy) online, resized and retitled it, and republished it as my own work, 300 x 404, After Untitled (Cowboy) 2003 by Richard Prince, and offered to let Slate show it instead. Though I’ve written for Slate before, they have not, as yet, taken me up on my offer.” - greg.org; also see the follow-up post.
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Just like there are seven stages of grief, there have got to be seven stages of an art controversy. I’m not inventive enough to come up with those (anyone?), even though my gut feeling tells me they contain “Shock & Denial” (“Oh, no, I can’t believe he did that!” - “No, I didn’t!”), “Anger & Bargaining” (“I’ll sue the living daylight out of you!” - “How about we settle out of court?”), maybe “Depression, Reflection, Loneliness” (“Why the f*** did I become an artist and not an accountant like my dad wanted me to?”, “How dare these people question my motives?”, “I’m an artist, I can do whatever I want!”), and more. I don’t know what stage of the Shephard Fairey Hope poster controversy we’re in right now, it’s hard to tell. It does involve law suits, but since all self-respecting art controversies contain those, that’s not too helpful.
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Concerning the discussion about Shepard Fairey’s Obama poster (did he or did he not plagiarize earlier work and/or did he violate somebody else’s copyright): The chickens are clearly coming home to roost. After all, we are still missing meaningful discussions about how new art can relate to earlier art (and by that I do not mean rants about somebody “ripping off” somebody else or rants about how artists can do anything they want), we are still missing meaningful discussions about art and money (if an “underground” artist suddenly can make some money is that so bad - is s/he “selling out”?), and we have allowed people to pretty much reduce the issue of copyright to purely commercial aspects (with corporations, most famously Disney, at the forefront of how copyright should be defined).
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“Paris photographer Patrick Cariou has filed suit against Richard Prince, Gagosian [the man and the gallery], and Rizzoli for copyright infringement. Prince used photos from Cariou’s 2000 book Yes Rasta in the Canal Zone paintings he just showed at Gagosian NY last month” - story
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I’m going to play devil’s advocate here, because I think there is something to be learned from looking at a topic from as many angles as possible. Richard Prince recently gained further notoriety when one of the photographs from his Cowboys series sold for 3.4 million US$. These Cowboys, of course, are photographs of other photographs, namely of sections of Marlboro cigarette ads, and that’s where - according to many people - the problem is to be found: Not only is it quite shameless to take a photo of someone else’s work and then pretend it’s one’s own, but it’s even more shameless to sell it for 3.4 million dollars.
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Via Chase Jarvis’ blog I found this audio interview with Lawrence Lessig - if you want to learn about “Creative Commons” check it out!
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