I’m also not essentially worried about copyrights about photographing statues. Mainly because if I do, it’s for personal archive and not for commercial use.
Nonetheless, I don’t think copyrights will be abolished in the future. Maybe tweaked, but it servers a purpose. Otherwise, many people will see their work stolen all over the place, and will make many people give up the art. Lots of photographers make their living from it.

Thanks for dropping by.

Thanks for keeping track. It has definitely been a very interesting discussion.

Just a small heads-up. I had to fish all the comments you left from the Askimet spam net. So your site is somehow marked as spam on their database. You might want to try and pull it out of there.

Thanks again.

You are absolutely right. I should have read the actual statutes more thoroughly, but what I was actually thinking of was the “amount and substantiality” measure with regard to “fair use.”

It is possible to create legal derivatives from copyrighted works provided that the derivatives are sufficiently different from the originals. Think about Andy Warhol’s Mona Lisa screen prints and Campbell’s Soup cans.

In this case, a simple photograph of the statue would certainly not qualify as a fair use derivative work and would therefore be illegal to use for anything other than editorial purposes. Photographs used for editorial purposes are essentially never illegal (think journalism, etc.).

This has been a very interesting discussion.

That was quite a nice read you pointed me to. Copyright issues are really becoming a mess.

About the guard asking to erase the photos, I agree completely. There is no way that he could have done that. But, would anyone risk a lengthy case because of such a small thing? Maybe we should…

Oh, and thanks for adding my feed to your reader. Keep stopping by.

I’ll point you to the copyright office Web site:

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wci

It is one of the set of exclusive rights that a copyright holder gets.

The section you quote from US copyright law essentially states, in a nutshell, the purpose of copyright, which is to permit a copyright owner to profit from their creation by preventing others from duplicating and selling it as their own.

What the law does not state (which is what makes copyright law such a bramble patch) is what qualifies as “derivative” and what is simply a “copy.”

I am reminded of a court case that Dan Heller wrote about in one of his treatises on the subject of copyright and trademarks (which is really what these statues and buildings are claiming to be, trademarks). You can read the actual ruling here (it’s long): http://www.danheller.com/images/FAQ/Business/rock-n-roll-case.txt

And you can read Dan’s thoughts about it here: http://www.danheller.com/model-release-copyrights.html (under section 2.4 “Scope of Trademark Protections,” though the entire page is relevant).

Basically, a photographer was sued for photographing the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and selling posters made from the images. The photographer lost the civil suit, but the federal court of appeals reversed the ruling for various reasons (finding in favor of the photographer and permitting him to continue selling the posters).

What I’m getting at with all this is that it’s seldom a cut-and-dry situation, and even when a copyright holder has a legally valid claim, the photographer’s use may still be permissible. Or it may not be!

One other thing I wanted to touch on regarding the original question is that the security guard had absolutely no right (in the US) to demand the erasure of the image. Whether the use of that image would have been infringement or not, “private parties have no right to confiscate your film … threatening to use force or call a law enforcement agency can constitute criminal offenses such as theft and coercion.” (From attorney Bert P. Krages II’s wonderful “The Photographer’s Right” guide: http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm)

Of course photographers should be respectful. I have been asked to stop photographing by many authority figures in many situations and I typically do. There is no sense causing trouble over a snapshot of a funny-looking statue. Nevertheless, when we allow some of our rights to be violated, we get closer to having no rights at all.

I’m adding your blog to my feed reader!

Thanks for your insights.
I’ve read the document you linked to (very informative) but I couldn’t find in it any mention to photographing copyrighted work. It goes a great way explaining your rights to take photos in public or privately owned but accessible places and is a good resource but doesn’t answer the main question on my post.
It seems that Martin was told that he could take any photo he wanted except from the statue. If you think about it, the statue is a copyrighted work and a photo is a derivative work.
When you say “When you say that creating derivative works of copyrighted works is illegal, you are completely wrong. At least, in the United States you are.” I’ll have to point you to the US Copyrights Office, specifically the section about derivative works (http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.html), in which is stated “Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work. The owner is generally the author or someone who has obtained rights from the author”.

I agree with you when you mention that if an area is accessible you can take and sell photos of it. But not of any copyrighted work on it. As an example, I’d like you to consider the following scenario:
You manage to get a few photo works on a gallery for exhibit. I go there and take a perfectly framed photo of one of your works and manage to sell it as stock. Next week you see a huge billboard advertising for some company with your photo. Do you think I trespassed on your copyrights? Because according to you, I didn’t.

Anyway, I really enjoyed your comment and I hope that it managed to open up things a bit for discussion.

Thanks for your opinion.

For further information on what you mentioned, I’ll refer you to the link posted by Aaron (just bellow yours). It’s actually quite informative on the whole private/public places and the rights you have to take photos in there.

Thanks for dropping by and taking the time to comment.

As you mentioned, normally you can. No one will usually stop you. The problems, as you also note, is if you intend to make money on that work. Then not only you are violating a copyright but profiting from it.

You also touch on a point that is very interesting, and that is when a derivative work will fall under fair use such as newsworthy or editorial content. Nonetheless, care needs to be taken if you use copyrighted work under fair use but then make profit from it.

And it’s true. Sometimes having the bigger camera draws a lot more attention to you.

Thanks for your comment.

Not only can you take pictures of that statue, but the hotel has absolutely no right to force you to delete the images. Even if you are criminally trespassing, you can take photographs and sell them for money as stock or prints or whatever you want.

This applies only for “publicly accessible areas,” which doesn’t mean “publicly owned,” only publicly ACCESSIBLE. In other words, photographing inside of a shopping mall, for instance, is a publicly accessible area. Even if the mall says you can’t photograph there and kicks you out, you can use those photographs to make money.

I wrote a somewhat extensive article about this and linked to some helpful documents written by people more knowledgeable than myself on US law:

http://www.singleservingphoto.com/2007/07/10/photographers-are-terrorists/

I’ve personally been asked to stop photographing BUILDINGS with the reason given that “the building is copyrighted.” So what? If photographing copyrighted objects were actually illegal, very little photography would take place in this country.

I hope that’s helpful!

That is unlikely in this case since the statute was mentioned specifically, but it is worth noting nonetheless.

An interesting article with a lot of valuable questions.