On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 7:00 AM, Pete Jenkins <
petej@...> wrote:
> Ryan wrote:
>
>>Many photographers don't realize it, but sculptures that are not in
>>the public domain -- even sculptures in public places -- are subject
>>to the same copyright protections as any other work of art. Thus,
>>taking a photo of a sculpture could, in itself, be a violation of
>>copyright.
>
> My apologies to you Ryan, but this is incorrect information.
>
> It is NOT illegal or wrong to take a photograph.
>
> It might however be an infringement to PUBLISH the photograph.
>
> The two actions are totally separate and different, and must always be seen as such. Whatever the copyright status of the original artwork.
To play Devil's Advocate, when you download a copy of Transformers
from MegaUpload, you are not publishing Transformers, but you are
definitely infringing copyright by making an unauthorized copy. Ditto
if you rent a movie from Netflix and burn a copy before you mail it
back. It's not so much whether you publish it or not. Granted, we
are talking about derivatives here, not exact copies, but:
§ 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this
title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the
following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to
the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental,
lease, or lending;
A copyright owner has exclusive rights to authorize others to PREPARE
derivative works. Not just publish (which is covered in paragraph 3).
I take this to assume that the moment you photograph a copyrighted
sculpture in which the sculpture is the dominant subject of the photo,
(at least, in the U.S.) you have created an unauthorized derivative.
At which point you must rely on being able to say that the image is
tranformative or is fair use to make it not an infringement.
I'm not an attorney and I definitely wouldn't rely on my advice.
Maybe Jeff will ring in? :)
--
-Ryan McGinnis
The BIG Storm Picture:
http://bigstormpicture.com PGP Key: 0x65115E4C
Follow my storm chasing adventures at
http://bigstormpicture.blogspot.comImages@Getty:
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http://bit.ly/aMH6Qd
