Italian Officials Claim American Gun Ad Featuring Michelangelo's David Is 'Illegal'
from the but-is-it? dept
Somehow the word "copyright" is being thrown around in relation to a 500-year-old statue. Any reasonable person would assume the word "copyright" shouldn't come within 350 years of any creation, but that's how the story's being presented. (h/t to Techdirt reader WulfTheSaxon)
Italy's culture minister has expressed outrage over an advertisement by a US weapons firm showing Michelangelo's David holding a rifle. Dario Franceschini said the image was offensive and violated the law.First off, the ad itself is over a year old, as Sara Morrison at The Wire points out. The ad was originally tweeted by Armalite back in May of 2013. This ad, however, was only recently published in Italy, hence the sudden outrage.
A number of Italian media web sites carried the image of the advertisement showing David holding a bolt-action rifle. The advertisement, from Illinois-based ArmaLite, carries the line "a work of art" in promoting the $3,000 rifle. Mr Franceschini urged the company to withdraw the advertisement for the AR-50A1.
He said in a tweet: "The image of David, armed, offends and infringes the law. We will take action against the American company so that it immediately withdraws its campaign."
AR-50A1: A WORK OF ART! http://t.co/iITCN2qKnh pic.twitter.com/wr2yTnLhve
— ArmaLite Inc. (@ArmaLiteInc) May 15, 2013
What Italian officials actually seem to be claiming is control over use of images of the sculpture, which is adjacent to copyright, but not entirely the same thing.
Cristina Acidini, Florence superintendent for history and fine arts, condemned the company’s use of the image and also urged ArmaLite to immediately withdraw it.What's being stated here sounds more like publicity rights. Florence officials are seeking to control use of David's "image" in advertising. ("Image" in this case being the collective perception of a cultural icon, rather than a photograph.) Italy may technically "own" the sculpture (as much as anyone can "own" a cultural icon), but it can't claim to control the copyright, which has long since expired. (And that's even under Italy's restrictive laws which make no allowances for fair use and include dubious "moral rights" as part of the copyright package.)
“To use a work of art from any of the Florence museums for promotional purposes, it is necessary to obtain an evaluation of how the image may be used,” Miss Acidini said. “No-one ever agreed to that.”
So, Florence effectively controls use of images (photos) of the sculpture, and is trying to assert some form of publicity rights on behalf of a statue. It can't lock anyone out from producing their own David sculptures, but what museum officials have done instead is prevent anyone from producing their own images. The museum has a strict "no photography" policy which means that any photos of David are controlled by the museum. (There doesn't seem to any similar policy restricting photography of the replica located elsewhere in Florence.) In this fashion, Florence officials can seek to control of David's use in commercial works via copyright law, even if what's being detailed here seems to rely more on outrage over "distorting" the sculpture's iconic status than any true legal basis.
But this assertion of control over a cultural icon is still specious, as even the Florence superintendent of fine arts seems to realize. As Cristina Acidini says at ilpost.com, it's an "international event" but "I cannot, of course, send the FBI after Armalite." Instead, she intends to use the court of public opinion to render a verdict in the museum's favor and shame ArmaLite into dumping the ad.
"But I intend to use all the possibilities of reaction... starting with the 'moral persuasion' and scandal in the newspapers."So, what we have is a copyright-esque assertion being used to shame a gun manufacturer into dropping an ad that has offended cultural sensibilities halfway around the world (ArmaLite is based in Illinois). At the center of it all is a 500-year-old sculpture currently in the public domain, but controlled by "adjacent" copyright measures. In the end, all these Italian officials have is their offended sensibilities, which really isn't enough to justify their demands.
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Filed Under: copyright, david, italy, michelangelo, publicity rights
Companies: armalite
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Although now I'm wondering if a case could be made that it violates some kind of EU law.
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Art History majors, to arms!
Does that mean they'll be chiseling away the sling?
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no doubt Disney is drooling
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The end result of political correctness, offending an official is a crime.
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Time
Just want to point out that May 15, 2013 to March 11, 2014 is less than one year, not "over a year".
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Meanwhile, in US copyright law some photographs of artworks are copyrightable - specifically, the photo of a 3D work is deemed not to be a slavish copy but to have some degree of new creative content (see widely cited decision i Bridgeman v. Corel and subsequent case law).
Museums in the US and EU often post signs saying "no photographs" or "no photography for commercial purposes." The downstream commercial user of a photo is then deemed to have violated that contract.
But it would be hard for Italy to prove that a particular stock-house photo of the David was not made with permission - or even to identify a particular photo out of the millions people take every year.
The whole thing is just silly in this instance, but sadly, these sorts of restrictions hamper the use of public-domain art images constantly, especially in art books.
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Streisand much?
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An Italian official has just purchased from Armalite...
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And now
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Policy
> which means that any photos of David are controlled
> by the museum.
Not really. If you violate their policy, you can be trespassed and told to leave, and maybe fined, but your violation of museum policy doesn't give the museum control of the photo you took. You still own that.
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David was a pretty bad-ass dude. After the whole sling-rock thing, he chopped off Goliath's head with Goliath's own sword, and then proceeded to run around causing mayhem (conquest of Jerusalem, anyone?). He would have loved an assault rifle.
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Moral right
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Anyone with any common sense would agree that a 500 year old statue is 'fair game' for use in advertising.
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