Do You Need Permission To Take A Photo With A Chair In It? You Might In France...
from the exactly-wrong dept
The British Journal of Photography (BJP) brings us yet another story of aggressive assertion of copyright wreaking harm on artists -- the very people it allegedly empowers. It concerns some photos in Getty Images' stock library that have chairs in them. Because a few of those chairs are "famous" in the sense that they were produced by a couple of designers that worked with the architect Le Corbusier, the heirs of those designers, together with the Le Corbusier Foundation, have sued Getty Images in France for copyright infringement -- and won:
"Basically, there are two notions of copyright going against each other in this particular case," says [the plaintiffs' lawyer] de Leusse. "Photographers' copyright, and the designers' rights. Very much like a photographer needs the authorisation of people featured in their photos before selling them, they also need the authorisation of the intellectual property rights' holders when it comes to works of art such as these objects."
That, of course, raises the question: when is a chair -- or any other object -- a work of art? Because the logic of the court's decision would seem to be that before you can take a photo of any "work of art", you must get permission from the rights holder -- but knowing when that is necessary is difficult.
Getty Images is apparently trying to push that problem on to its contributing photographers, judging by an email sent to them, and reported in the BJP article quoted above:
You are responsible under your agreements with us to submit only content for which you have the necessary rights. Using this case as an example, while you may hold a copyright in a particular image or clip, if it contains even a fraction of a Le Corbusier piece then you may not have all the necessary rights under French law to provide that content and therefore may be liable for copyright infringement under French law in respect of the furniture featured.
This ruling will surely lead to an escalation of claims in France against photographers for daring to "infringe" on the rights of someone by including "even a fraction" of an object in their photos -- perhaps unwittingly. Which, in its turn, will inevitably have a chilling effect on photographers' spontaneity and choice of subject-matter, as they try to avoid getting sued by shooting only the most generic of objects, and under tightly-controlled conditions.
And so, once again, the assertion of an intellectual monopoly will lead to an overall reduction in creativity, with both artists and society losing out -- exactly the opposite of what it is supposed to happen.
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Filed Under: chairs, copyright, france
Companies: getty images, le corbusier
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They say stuff like this makes them embarrassed to be French.
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This case illustrates the willingness of government bodies to abuse the public. It's apparent that they have no real criminals to go after, so they redefine menial, harmless, everyday actions as being criminal. Real crime requires real work, after all, so go after easier targets. Viola, they've got millions of potential criminals, a win-win-win for federal officials, lawyers and copyright holders. This is abuse of the public.
If they ever tried to sue me for taking a picture of a chair, I would give them absolutely nothing.
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There/their
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HA HA HA! Good one ol' boy!
Come, let us give "campaign contributions" to politicians so they may make favorable laws for our entertainment industry.
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There's a law making sure you can't libel someone's reputation - let's say Mr. X stole your bike. You know he did: he put a picture on Facebook of the bike with him on it, he sent you a text telling you he's got your bike, and he even went up on a roof and yelled he stole your bike. Well, you can't tell anyone he's the one who stole your bike, since that would hurt his reputation. People have won on cases like this one.
The problem with France is they still think they're under Louis XIV. I grant them he's probably one of the best Kings the world has seen (but he was not *that* great, unlike what they'd want you to believe). However if you ask any French person what the Republic stands for, he'll talk about Napoleon, liberty, equality, fraternity, etc. But deep down they want everyone to know about their great monarchy.
I should know, I live right next to them. They're like that creepy neighbour across the hall who's always greeting you when you come home as if he's been standing on his porch all day, and you just know his room is full of pictures of Lindsey Lohan with knives planted to hold them on the wall.
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After all the copyrights of the designers have to be protected.
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This isn't copyright infringement, it's out and out copyright abuse, claiming rights that are not and were never granted by copyright law. And that in itself is a crime.
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Don't we have that same problem in the US?
I am glad to see this kind of issue crop up. We can only hope it crops up more and more until the courts are so choked with copyright issues that maybe someone takes notice and does something about it. When artists start choking each other and not just consumers, then something might be done.
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Re: Don't we have that same problem in the US?
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Re: Don't we have that same problem in the US?
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For shame
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-Chairs
-Couches
-Tables
-People
-Buildings
-Objects
-Pretty much anything man made
So I guess that means we can only take pictures of nature from now on, as long as that 'nature' is on your property (after all the public, as in the government, owns public parks!). Unless of course the Pope, or someone claiming to represent god decides to sue you for the lord for violating god's copyright, since god created the earth. Then you'll be allowed to take and post pictures of absolutely nothing, not even yourself, seeing as other people own the rights to your DNA.
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Sadly French copyright law seems to be the source of all the worst entitlement concepts.
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This part of your post is pointless and demeaning. What do you gain from taking hot-shots at the Catholic Church?
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And gave it to us on a copyleft license
As in Matthew 10: "Freely you have received, freely give".
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My God...I would never have thought You would get mixed up in this.
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- The world is crawling with bugs;
- Security is abysmal: There is at least one recorded instance of the use of a Trojan horse to gain illegal access to a protected system;
- Drivers keep crashing.
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The "h" kinda looks like a chair.
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Oops! I just did it at least 7 times above and more here. I better run and hide somewhere where the French can't find me.
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Tats ok. I ave a cold so I am dropping all those letters anyway. I'm safe.
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It also kinda looks like a tiny cheerleader holding up one pompon with one hand and another pompon telekinetically.
I think that this use of the haitch is transformative!
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Photographing the lower quarter inch of the back left leg of a Corbusier is like breaking into Corbusier's descendants villa, stealing the dining silver and raping their kid. Yes, you heard me. If you are against copyright to any degree you are a pedophile.
Just because your mommy gave you a camera does not give you a free pass to take other peoples stuff.
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"Did you get permission from the hat designer? Or the shirt designer? Pants? Socks? You didn't get permission from the sock designer? Criminal scum!"
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https://www.google.com/search?q=Le+Corbusier+chairs+pictures+france&hl=en&prmd=imvnsuo&a mp;tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=a8ZGT-KLI6rd0QHYhuypDg&ved=0CFwQsAQ&bi w=1095&bih=560
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Getty Nazis
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HAHA
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HAHAAAAA
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HAHAAAAA
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comment held for moderation
FUCK YOU later
dont bother no more techdirt is dead
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CENSORSHIP!
Or perhaps it's just a spam filter, but I'm going to stick with
CENSORSHIP!
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Comes in handy even though Techdirt doesn't censor.
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Re: comment held for moderation
For future reference - If your comment gets stuck in the moderation queue, pushing the submit button over and over again doesn't make it appear quicker.
Next time you could try making really fast clockwise circles with your cursor - that might speed things up.
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But not nearly as fast as counter-clockwise...
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Of course, that all depends on if the poster is in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere.
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Dear Rights holder,
I really enjoyed your work and wanted to share it with my friends who couldn't be here with me today. But since you are so concerned about your rights on this object, I was not able to take a picture and give you a bunch of free advertisement that you would of had to put 0 effort into. That is really too bad, because I know someone who really likes this type of design and probably would have bought one from you. But I guess you are getting what you want, so good luck with that.
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Quickly!
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Re: Quickly!
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Typical
They are a very good reason why anyone thinking entitlements are a good thing - study French Gov't and their future.
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You barely get a 2/10 for this article, very poor work.
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Certainly we wouldn't want to listen to their other suggestions, which would see us broaden the definition of "fair use" and, horrifically, reduce copyright terms back to merely a lifetime or even less. Not only would such an act deprive our great-great-grandchildren of their birthright, but it would surely choke off creativity to the dark ages of the 18th and 19th centuries, a desperately lean time for art in which we had to make do with mere scribblers such as Wordsworth, Swift, Richardson, Defoe, Austen, Bronte, Hardy, Dickens, and Keats.
Do we really want to return to that world? I don't think so.
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Further, the proposals generally allow for larger rights for individuals not working specifically for profit than everyone else. That is also an unfair situation.
Finally, how would you stack these extended rights up on, say, Youtube? If you give more fair use rights to "amateur" video creators, what happens when their work appears on a commercial website? Did their fair use disappear, or did their fair use suddenly magically get extended to a commercial entity, which couldn't do the same thing by itself?
I have yet to see a "fair use expansion" proposal that didn't allow for this massive backdoor.
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What total bullocks.
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Nobody has a gun to the artists head to sign the images over, they do so willingly.
Sorry to bust your bubble on that.
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The sound of the point going over your kool aid addled head.
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Perfect Picture of Paris
Paris in Summer
This is how most pictures of Paris should look. Please note the subtle modifications to the picture to ensure that it follows all of the latest guidelines and policies put in place by the French courts.
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Re: Perfect Picture of Paris
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Say what now!?
How can this be!? How would you ever be able to do anything even remotely journalistic if you needed permission from everyone in the pictures!? Madness.
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Re: Say what now!?
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And really, copyright on a chair?????????
Oh well, the world gets crazier.
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unintended consequences
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Again...
They didn't have enough interest in their rights to stand-up to the Nazi's in WWII and they don't have enough interest in their rights now to stand up to idiotic and problematic "intellectual" property laws.
Eventually... the entire world - except for pirate - will completely stagnate because you won't actually be able to create anything new since someone will have some VAGUELY similiar copyright, trademark or patent and the new creators will be so afraid of a lawsuit, they won't even try to publish mainstream.
Instead, I see an underground culture forming. You'll have the yellow pencil, googstepping 9-5 sheepeople who just blindly follow the yellow line to work and then back to home.
Then, you'll have the creative underground "criminals"... and dare I says, "intellectual copyright terrorists" who create new stuff, remix stuff and rehash old stuff from 200 years ago - which has been retroactively copyrighted.
It's a sad, sad testemant to where we are headed. And the French are the first to get the labotomy.
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Copyright?
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[sarc]
Filthy pirates, photographers. Can't stand 'em. I'm foaming at the mouth and the world is in its endtimes because of all this immorality.
Mike, why are you such a pirate? Chubby two-faced slimeball.
[/sarc]
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Thanks !
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"harmonizing copyright law worldwide
[Sarcasm - copyright industry pipe dreams]
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