Legal Issues Regarding Photographs
United States courts have consistently held that sculptors maintain an intellectual property right to sculptures and are entitled to compensation if photographs are used for commercial purposes. The rights apply even if the sculptor no longer owns the sculpture or is even in a public space. The sculptor however could sign away those rights. Some other countries such as Germany give permission to take the photographs via the concept of Panoramafreiheit.
On February 25, 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled 2-1 that the Frank Gaylord, sculptor of the Korean War Veterans Memorial was entitled to compensation because an image of it was used on a 37 cent postage stamp and he had not signed away his intellectual property rights. The appeals court rejected arguments that the photo was transformative.
In 2002 amateur photographer and retired Marine John All paid was $1,500 to use one of his photographs of the memorial on a snowy day for the stamp which sold more than $17 million worth of stamps. In 2006 sculptor Frank Gaylord enlisted Fish & Richardson to make a pro bono claim that the Postal Service had violated his Intellectual property rights to the sculpture and thus should have been compensated. The Postal Service argued argued that Gaylord was not the sole sculptor (saying he had received advice from federal sources – who recommended that the uniforms appear more in the wind) and also that the sculpture was actually architecture. Gaylord won all of his arguments in the lower court except for one…the court ruled the photo was fair use and thus he was not entitled to compensation. Gaylord appealed and won the case on appeal. On April 22, 2011, The US Court of Claims awarded Gaylord $5,000.
Read more about this topic: Sculpture Of The United States
Famous quotes containing the words legal, issues and/or photographs:
“There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system’s ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.”
—H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)
“The “universal moments” of child rearing are in fact nothing less than a confrontation with the most basic problems of living in society: a facing through one’s children of all the conflicts inherent in human relationships, a clarification of issues that were unresolved in one’s own growing up. The experience of child rearing not only can strengthen one as an individual but also presents the opportunity to shape human relationships of the future.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“The charm, one might say the genius of memory, is that it is choosy, chancy, and temperamental: it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chewing a hunk of melon in the dust.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)