[Clipart] Che image is not public domain

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

"Paul Reinheimer" <paul.clipart at preinheimer.com> writes:

> There is a recent case of a sculpture being put up in a public park
> somewhere in the US (I think it's seattle, nope chicago), and
> security physically preventing patrons of the park from taking
> pictures of it, citing copyright restrictions.
> See story at BoingBoing: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/06/chicagos_public_scul.html

This is the city of Chicago acting on someone's misunderstanding of
the law, probably for political reasons (the same kind of reasons that
would convince them to pay that kind of money for a statue).  Actual
copyright law does not support this position.  Additionally, using
police to enforce such restrictions is highly nonstandard.  Copyright
violation, even with en-masse reproduction for profit, is generally a
civil offense and the subject of civil litigation, rather than
criminal prosecution.  What Chicago is doing here has little or
nothing to do with the way copyright law normally works.

> I also beleive that a particular individual or group owns the copyright
> on the pattern of lights present on the Eiffel tower at night, and as such
> you don't really own any rights to any pictures you take.
> See Image Copyright: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower

This sounds like an urban legend to me.  The page that you cite
doesn't say anything at all about that, nor does the metapage for the
image of the tower at dusk that is included there; in fact, quite to
the contrary, it states that the image is from the Wikimedia Commons
and distributed under the GFDL, was photographed by such-and-such a
person, and so on.

> These are both extreme cases, but they show that there has been
> precident of people creating physical objects, and enforcing their
> will on those who would photograph them.

Attempting to enforce, perhaps.  Show me a court case where it went
anywhere, ever.

> Since Apple undoubtedly enlisted the aid of an entire team of designers
> while desigining the iPod, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they
> attempted the same thing, if they saw the image being used in a manner
> they didn't approve of.

Apple isn't dumb.  Protective of their intellectual property, yes, but
not dumb.

I am not a lawyer, and none of this is legal advice, but let's not be
too paranoid.  We're making a good-faith effort to keep things out of
the collection that we believe have copyright or trademark issues, but
I do not for one second believe that any and every image that depicts
an available consumer product necessarily has such issues by virtue of
the item it represents.

-- 
Open Clip Art Library:  Drawing Together
http://www.openclipart.org/