[Commons-l] Photos of statues not considered derivatives in the US? (Geoffrey Plourde)

[Cary Bass]

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I would like to point out that it's not up to the Wikimedia Foundation
to determine what is free and not free on Commons; this is entirely
governed by the Commons community, which has a mix of experts and
non-experts of its own. However, I will be copying Mike Godwin on
this email to find out what his educated opinion is on the matter (I
have a feeling he'll say something like a photograph of a statue taken
in the United States is in fact not a derivative work of the statue in
the United States)

Cary Bass


J JIH wrote:
> Neither am I your lawyer, but your points are very interesting and
> potentially encouraging. Once the Wikimedia Foundation is able to
> accept your points, recent pictures of very old coins may also
> become acceptable on Commons, similar to mere copies of very old
> 2-dimensional works.
>
> Jusjih
>
>> Message: 4 Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:11:39 -0800 (PST) From:
>> Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd at yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Commons-l]
>> Photos of statues not considered derivatives in the US? To:
>> Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>> Message-ID: <131842.94385.qm at web37405.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>>
>> IANAL, but I would say it's solid as it has been cited in Latimer
>> v. Roaring Toyz, Inc., 2008 WL 697346 (M.D. Fl.)
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________ From: Howard Cheng
>> <howard at howcheng.com> To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List
>> <commons-l at lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008
>> 4:42:29 PM Subject: [Commons-l] Photos of statues not considered
>> derivatives in the US?
>>
>> According to
>>
http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2008/02/photographs-and-derivative-works.html,
>> Judge William H. Pauley III of the Southern District of New York
>> ruled in SHL Imaging, Inc. v. Artisan House, Inc., 117 F. Supp.
>> 2d 301 (S.D. N.Y. 2000) that photographs of statues/sculptures
>> are not considered derivative works, noting: "A photograph of
>> Jeff Koons's 'Puppy' sculpture in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center
>> merely depicts that sculpture; it does not recast, transform, or
>> adapt Koons's sculptural authorship. In short, the authorship of
>> the photographic work is entirely different and separate from the
>> authorship of the sculpture."
>>
>> Note that this is the same court that issued the Bridgeman v.
>> Corel ruling. If this hasn't been overturned at any point, and
>> the blog post linked above doesn't indicate that it has, then we
>> should start allowing photos of statues in the US, and perhaps
>> anywhere even where there is no FOP for statues (similar to what
>> we did for PD-Art).
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> -h

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