Once in a while the subject of copyright in photography comes forward.

It is an area where, understandably, there is much misconception, mainly because there is not a “universal” law on copyrights in photography. Actually, different countries have different laws and even inside the same country, like the US, copyright laws change from state to state.

A few day ago I received an email from Martin Dean with a strange story that might have had to do with copyrights. While, for the most cases, doubts come when the rights of the photographer are in question, his was, I believe, a little different:

 

Hi,

I have a question that you might help me with.

Recently I was in NY for a few days. At my hotel lobby there was a very curious statue with some nice propped lighting. I decided to take a shot of it, more for the weirdness of the setting than expecting an exceptional photo to come out.

I shot a frame and, when was about to move away (my camera was on my shoulder strap), I was approached by a security gentleman that, in very brush terms, informed me that I could not take any photos of the statue. Since he explicitly mentioned the statue I asked what about the rest of the lobby. His answer was strange since he proceeded to tell me that he had instructions to prevent photos from that statue only.

Not much more to say except that I was only left alone after I deleted the photo from the card in front of him and showed him that there were no more photos of the statue.

My question is, can the hotel really do that? I’m just curious about it. It’s not a security matter or anything since it seems that I could take any pictures I wanted as long as it didn’t include that statue.

Thanks for any help.

Before I attempt any answer, I have to say that I’m glad I’m not a lawyer so I can’t answer with complete certainty. Also, I don’t live in the US, so specifics for this kind of situations over there are a bit foggy for me. Nonetheless, I researched about it and came up with a possible explanation. If this was not the case, at least the information for photographers is valid.

 Photographing Copyrighted Work

It is usually accepted that any statues and monuments that are on a public place are OK to photograph. But OK doesn’t mean legal.

Any form of art (which may include architecture) is copyrighted by the author (until the copyright expires, usually up to 50 years after the death of the author). When you photography a statue or monument, or even a painting at a museum, you are, in fact, creating a derivative work of copyrighted material, which is illegal. Of course that the majority of artists want the exposure placing their work on a public place gives them and know, beforehand, that it will most probably be photographed.

Worse case is when the photographer generates some revenue from the derivative work and there are a few cases where these copyright infringement cases went to court. This is why you can’t sell any photos containing, as an example, the Eiffel Tower at night - the lighting is copyrighted art.

Exceptions (and again, it depends from country to country) exist when the work of art was bought or commissioned with public (federal) funding, in which cases it reverts to public domain.

Conclusions

I’ve had a few situations where I was asked not to photograph certain buildings. While it could have been due to security reasons (I believe it was the case most of the time) it could also have been an attempt from the architect to protect his copyrights. It baffles me a bit then that you can take a photo of a house, as long as it is from the public road, without breaking any copyright laws.

So Martin, I think this is what has happened to you. If you could take photos of everything with the exception of the statue, it might have been that is was not owned by the hotel and just on exhibit and the artist asked the hotel to prevent any derivative works from it, independently of you were going to make money out of it or not. If the hotel could force you to delete the images without the case being filled in court, I’m tempted to say that it couldn’t, but it’s just my guess.

If any of you readers knows of any similar situation or can add more information, just post it on the comments bellow.

Source: tzplanet

Last update: 14-11-2007 13:42