James D. Forrester wrote:
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Fastfission wrote:
Well, the UK is a place in particular where the issue raised in Bridgman v. Corel has not been ironed out one way or another.
Hmm. Possibly. The relevant sections [0] of the CDPA[1] are quite clear[2], so the question is whether they are applicable:
| 1. (1) Copyright is a property right which subsists in accordance with | this Part in the following descriptions of work? | | (a) original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works,
[...]
| 4. (1) In this Part "artistic work" means? | | (a) a graphic work, photograph, sculpture or collage, | irrespective of artistic quality, [...] | (c) a work of artistic craftsmanship.
It is, AIUI, this last part, s. 4(1)(c), that museums claim mean that anyone taking a photograph of a painting (or whatever) has used his "artistic craftsmanship" to do so; the "mechanical reproduction" argument of Bridgman v. Corel could arguably be discounted by the reference to it being "irrespective of artistic quality" - a perfect reproduction has on its own no artistic quality to speak of, merely that of the original (which is probably quite high, or the photographer wouldn't have bothered, Ms. Tracey Emin's oeuvre aside[3]).
[0] - Sections under Crown Copyright, reproduced under s.29 (or perhaps s.30, if one were to be kind about the worth of my words). [1] - That is, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_1.htm. [2] - Well, they are to my eye, though perhaps I'm a tad odd. OK, make that "very odd". :-) [3] - My apologies (and deepest sympathies) to any fans of Ms. Emin.
My apologies for not being familiar with Ms. Emin.
The way I would read "irrespective of artistic quality" it is to protect even bad artists. This allows the drawings of a 3-year old to be protected, and prevents the argument that something is not good enough to be protected. An interesting case would be over copyrights on the paintings by the elephants in the San Diego Zoo. Would an elephant be capable of exercising artistic craftsmanship?
The fact that the Bridgeman v. Corel situation has not been ironed out in Britain cannot be taken as support for either side of the argument. Subsection 4(c) at first strikes me as a redundancy unless it can be taken to apply prospectively to other formats that are not specified in (a) or (b). I think that any photograph that we may be considering would pass the test in section 4, but it must still pass the originality test specified in paragraph 1(1)(a).
BTW does this copy of the Act include amendments since 1988? I see that it still shows copyright duration as being life + 50. Why have I misunderstood that it would be life + 70?
In any event given the fuss that the museums of Britain have been making over this issue, it is amazing that there would be no British court decision on this. It would, of course, be up to them to initiate any infringement procedings. In the absence of such proceedings they have an infinite capacity to roar like paper tigers for as long as people are willing to take that roar seriously. Unfortunately, as Wikipedia gets bigger it becomes less courageous in taking on these ruffians, because it has assets that it could lose. It would be helpful to have a litigation-proofed organization that operates at arms length to Wikipedia, and that could openly inspire the museums into taking legal action.
Ec