tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29419760444486857332024-03-14T04:52:14.854+00:00Art and ArtificeA weblog dedicated to everything concerning art and the lawMollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13355163599192206484noreply@blogger.comBlogger476125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-43500568254457325332017-01-20T10:09:00.000+00:002017-01-20T10:18:17.840+00:00How art and law can work together beyond the marketplace<div style="text-align: justify;">
Art & Artifice is pleased to bring readers a guest post from <a href="https://www.law.berkeley.edu/our-faculty/faculty-profiles/sonia-katyal/">Sonia K. Katyal</a> and <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/histart/people/faculty/jkee.html">Joan Kee</a>, who recently co-wrote the article "How Art and Law can work together beyond the marketplace" on the role of art law in engaging with the work of minorities. </div>
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Sonia is chancellor's professor of law at Berkeley: her scholarly work focuses on intellectual property, art law, civil rights, property theory and technology. Joan is an associate professor at University of Michigan, whose academic research deals with how modern and contemporary artworks figure as provocations to structures and frames of reference, including the law, underpinning their creation and circulation.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Untitled (billboard of an empty bed)"<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jasoneppink/4304873957/in/photolist-7ypB3M-8exUDN-7xQVm2-9XvSa-7xQVwz-5ZBUZ-dd3tqZ-7xQVHz-7xUKEJ-7xQVEk-7xUKiA-7xQVLT-7xUKQj-7xQVZK-7xUKzA-9K32g2-7xQVXz-7xUKU9-7xQVzt-7xQW56-7xQW3v-7xUKhu-fhSqzm-7CP6LU-9WVK2-7xUL49-7xQW24-9SQFdg-fhSqiY-4eyWE2-8v2LMW-7xUKdL-7xUKeY-7xUKmo-7xUKvA-7xQVJx-7xUKsU-7xQVqR-38hWK8-7xQVtZ-7xUKAY-adyep-76FPZB-76KJTQ-59Men-76FPTP-7CKi3D-7CKhCg-7CP6tu-7CKibK" target="_blank">via Jason Eppink on Flickr</a></span><br />
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Bertolt Brecht famously wrote that "Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it". The beauty of art is that it can be many things at one time - a way for us to peer into society's faults and fissures; a device for visual revolution; or simply a fungible commodity, ripe for investment and trade on the open market. And then there are the institutional economies that emerge from each of these trajectories - auction houses, galleries, museums and the people they employ, including administrative staff, curators, publicists, and critics.<br />
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Less visible, but fundamental to all of those institutional economies are the lawyers. For centuries, law has often been inseparable from art, playing an important role in enabling (and disabling) the existence of the latter. Since the dramatic expansion of the commercial art market in the 1960s, and later in the '80s, the need to understand how law works in the art world has been especially urgent. The buying and selling of new kinds of work as well the age-old anxiety among owners regarding questions of authenticity and originality compelled buyers, sellers, and artists to entrust attorneys with the safeguarding of their property interests. Perhaps as a result, the mid-1970s saw the emergence of a new sub field of legal studies colloquially known as "art law" that sought to address these questions as well as other conundrums specific to visual art, including the appropriation of images in the name of creation. </div>
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In the 1980s and 90s, watershed moments like the removal of Richard Serra's "<a href="http://hyperallergic.com/162490/some-thoughts-about-richard-serra-and-martin-puryear-part-1-serra/">Tilted Arc</a>" and the <a href="http://hyperallergic.com/278022/20-years-after-an-obscenity-trial-cincinnati-reflects-on-robert-mapplethorpe/">censoring of artists like Robert Mapplethorpe</a> brought real pressure to bear on lawyers in their capacity to mediate between the disparate languages used to respectively describe art and law. As a result, more complex picture of the relationship between the two realms of art and law began to emerge.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">At times, art and constitutional law have appeared at odds with one another. Remember when <a href="http://rudolph%20giuliani%20tried%20to%20slash%20public%20funding%20for%20the%20brooklyn%20museum/">Rudolph Giuliani tried to slash public funding for the Brooklyn Museum</a> because of its Sensation exhibition (featuring the works of <a href="http://hyperallergic.com/159162/chris-ofilis-gone-and-dung-it-again/">Chris Ofili</a>?) Or the time that the Supreme Court uphed the "decency clause" restriction for funding by the National Endowment for the Arts, thus enabling it to effectively <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_the_Arts_v._Finley">censor artworks like that of performance artist Karen Finley</a>? In each of those moments, artistic expression becomes pitted against political and cultural considerations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As a result, the First Amendment is often left to mediate these disputes, at times leaving art deeply misunderstood and the world of law seem particularly hostile to cultural workers that even before. Still, at other times, the reverse has happened, where art tries to make sense of the rule of law. Artworks have played important roles in advancing dialogue on social injustice, from <a href="http://hyperallergic.com/285634/why-david-hammons-might-find-it-necessary-to-be-elusive-and-difficult/">David Hammon's</a> unforgettable "<a href="http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug01/hughes/case.html">Injustice Case</a>" (1970), a body print recalling how Black Panther leader Bobby Seale was bound and gagged in a Chicago courtroom, to <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BIWnS__hJ9M/">Curtis "Talwst" Santiago's "Por qué" </a>(2015) depicting the brutal murder of Eric Garner in a reclaimed ring box. There was also <a href="http://hyperallergic.com/302504/the-open-works-of-felix-gonzalez-torres/">Felix Gonzales-Torres' </a> <a href="https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/04/04/printout-felix-gonzalez-torres/">unmade bed series</a>, where the artist placed his vacant bed in a museum and photographed the bed for public billboards, as a statement about the effects of AIDS and the Supreme Court's decision to uphold sodomy laws. The work made powerful, highly emotional statements about the limits of law's protective reach.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">More recently, lawyers and artists, alike have struggled over competing claims to freedom of artistic expression and those made in the name of defending intellectual property rights. These debates prominently come up in cases of "fair use" like <a href="http://hyperallergic.com/69683/court-of-appeals-reverses-ruling-on-prince-v-cariou/">Cariou v. Prince</a>. They were also recently sparked by the work of artist <a href="http://hyperallergic.com/324466/appropriated-images-of-black-people-spark-boycott-of-st-louis-museum/">Kelley Walker, who appropriated images </a>of black people and from the Civil Rights-era and covered them with toothpaste - an act that many judged to be unethical and was the the <a href="http://hyperallergic.com/328747/contemporary-art-museum-st-louis-attack-boycott/">subject of widespread protest at the Contemporary Art Museum St Louis</a>, where the work was shown. The questions raised regarding racial difference, inequality, and appropriation are difficult ones, and, over time, it has become increasingly urgent that we engage with both the languages of art and law to make sense of how to answer them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Today, the need for these conversations - particularly as they address non-white, female, queer, and transgender artists - becomes particularly acute in the wake of Donald Trump's election, who has demonstrate an explicit to perpetuate unequal treatment before, and despite, the law. <a href="http://hyperallergic.com/339025/how-the-art-world-can-change-for-the-better-during-the-trump-years/">How does the art world respond</a> and how can art lawyers support the <a href="http://hyperallergic.com/338206/why-the-art-world-must-not-normalize-donald-trumps-presidency/">need for a critical response</a>? </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the one hand, the role of the art lawyers has been to lubricate the wheels of commerce, which can, at times, reinforce a conventional approach to power in the art world, measured almost exclusively by dollar signs. But this approach, which fails to think beyond the marketplace, runs the risk of missing the most illuminating contributions to art law itself. Consider an example. Last year, the online magazine Artnet generated a clickbait-worthy <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/most-powerful-art-lawyers-482339">list</a> of what it called "some of the most powerful lawyers in the art world today." While it billed itself as a "non-exclusive but representative roster," gathered after the author consulted a few "high profile" attorneys, who remained anonymous, perhaps its most notable aspect was who it did not include, and why. Consisting of an overwhelmingly male and white roster, the list included the top lawyers for Christie's and Sotheby's, and others representing a glittering array of largely male and white artists such as James Turrell, Richard Serra, David Wojnarowicz, along with the estates of Cy Twombly and Willem de Kooning. Of the 10 attorneys named, only two are women, one of whom is mentioned at the very bottom of the piece as a veritable afterthought. in sum, rather that take into account the complexity of the relationship between art and law, of cast a wider net of names that reflects the diversity of the art law world, the list of names collectively affirms the depressingly common assumptions that the "worth" of art must always be tied to its perceived market value and that power belongs exclusively to the monied. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">To reel out a list of overwhelmingly white, male lawyers and then deem them to be "most powerful," simply replicated the very thing that many artists - and lawyers alike - protest. This article is an attempt to shift the focus from how artworks function as yet another market commodity to how art and law can work as dynamic, reciprocal forces. Central to this thinking have been many attorneys who are female, LGBT, people of color, and other minorities. Just as there are many different kinds of artists, there are also many different kinds of art lawyers, in fact, binders full of them. Both of us, for example, are women of color, former practicing attorneys, and devoted scholars on art law who have spent much of our professional lives in dialogue with other people who deserve mention, not just due to the diversity that they bring to the table, but because each of these people offers us a different take than a simplistic money-is-power paradigm that pervades commentaries on the conventional art economy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">For instance, art lawyer and curator Pati Hertling works by day on issues of art restitution at a Manhattan law firm, while at night she has also curated exhibitions, salons, and performances focusing on feminism, sexuality, and social conscience, like <a href="http://www.evas-arche-und-der-feminist.com/">Evas Arche und der Feminist</a>, a performance series she co-curated with artist Marlous Borm. As Hertling's work demonstrates, it is possible to use the tools of art and law and find ways to offer cultural critiques of both. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The scholarship of Amy Adler, a professor at NYU Law (mentioned only in passing at the end of Artnet's Article), was one of the first to consider how art ushered us to rethink the law's regulation of all types of expression, including obscenity and postmodern appropriation. Taking the recent legal battles over Richard Prince's use of images produced by others as a case in point, <a href="http://www.nyulawreview.org/sites/default/files/pdf/NYULawReview-91-3-Adler.pdf">she recently argued </a>that art and the law will perpetually be at loggerheads unless the latter can admit the degree to which appropriation has become widespread in contemporary art.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">But there are examples where lawyers and artists must work closely together, like the legal defense team for Steve Kurtz, the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) member. His antiwar projects exploring the public health impact on germ warfare programs led to his illegal detention in 2004 by the FBI and the confiscation of his work in the name of national security. The legal case, which was settled in 2008, succeeded in pushing back against the excesses of the USA Patriot Act passed by an anxious Congress. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">And then there the artists-turned-lawyers who deserve consideration as well, because of the ways in which they use the law as a conceptual lens to make important artistic contribution. Terri Keyser, renowned in the 1980s as one-half of the duo United Art Contractors, published strategic advertisements in Artforum ("We're Desperate: We Want to Buy Our Way Into a Show"), calling the art world out on its careerism and cynical self-promotion long before it became fashionable to do so. Keyser may have been dreaming of a publication like Artnet when she and her collaborator David Shire offered to pay critics for reviews depending on quality; a bad review by a well-known art critic would earn 50 bucks while a "dynamite" review by an average art critic would gross seventy-five. Eventually, Keyser would attend law school almost as extension of her practice, subsequently becoming a prominent civil rights attorney. Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento, another artist who became a lawyer, eventually founded the Art & Law program in New York, which to our knowledge is the only initiative in the US dedicated to cultivating a sustained community of individuals committed to critically studying the intersection between art and law. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Largely because women and minorities have been overlooked in both the fields of art and law, they often offer us the most critical insights from an 'outsider' point of view, sometimes within the world of art, and, at other times, within the world of law. Recognizing these names is more than a salvage operation: it is also to underscore the profound importance of women's work and the work of people of color even when not yet legitimized or celebrated according to the assumptions created by a predominantly white male establishment. Such work aspires to many goals, of which the most important of all may be to emphasize how art is more than just a commodity, but the very thing that defines our collective and political identities. </span></div>
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Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00521285567302038210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-52668211416392054962016-03-31T18:14:00.000+01:002016-05-10T01:06:12.127+01:00Palmyra recaptured: restoration beginsSyrian troops recaptured Palmyra from the Islamic State last week, at the close of three weeks of intense fighting. The ancient city had been occupied by the jihadists since May 2015.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">A Syrian Army soldier on patrol near the Great Colonnade in Palmyra <br />
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Palmyra, known as the “pearl of the desert”, is a designated <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/23">UNESCO World Heritage Site</a> and was one of the most important cultural centres of antiquity. At the crossroads of several civilisations, its art and architecture combines <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/23">Graeco-Roman techniques with local traditions and Persian influences</a>. The ancient city counts among its losses the 2,000 year-old Temple of Bel, the shrine of Baal Shamin, the Arch of Triumph dating from around 200AD, and its <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/18/isis-beheads-archaeologist-syria">head of antiquities</a>, Khaled al-Assaad, who was killed for refusing to reveal to the jihadists where valuable artefacts had been hidden for safekeeping. Some sites, such as the Roman amphitheatre, were preserved for use in the Islamic State’s public executions.<br />
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The Syrian Army also discovered that the IS had planted <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-left-150-mines-dotted-around-the-ancient-site-of-palymra-a6957771.html">at least 150 mines</a> scattered around the historic quarter and residential area of Palmyra, where many of the city's most famous ruins are, as they had retreated from the city. <br />
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Nonetheless, the mood was jubilant. President Bashar al-Assad hailed the victory as an "important achievement" and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-palmyra-idUSKCN0WT04R">declared his intention to rebuild the city</a>: "Palmyra was demolished more than once through the centuries ... and we will restore it anew so it will be a treasure of cultural heritage for the world."<br />
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Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s head of antiquities and museums, <a href="http://www.afp.com/en/news/syrias-palmyra-can-be-restored-five-years">told AFP</a>: “We were expecting the worst. But the landscape, in general, is in good shape. 'We could have completely lost Palmyra. The joy I feel is indescribable”. Some <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3513495/Majority-Palmyra-s-ancient-treasures-held-ISIS-preserved-secret-deal-Syrian-government-terror-group-minister-reveals.html">news sources</a> report that no greater damage was inflicted as the result of a secret talks between Islamic State and the Syrian authorities, who warned of the dangers of sparking a popular uprising with their activities.<br />
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Abdulkarim suggested that “if we have UNESCO's approval, we will need five years to restore the structures damaged or destroyed by IS”. Whilst doubt has been cast <a href="http://www.afp.com/en/news/army-pressures-central-syria-after-palmyra-win">by one UN expert</a> over how realistic this timeframe is, work has already begun. <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/28/syrian-regime-troops-struggle-to-clear-explosive-booby-traps-in/">Russia intends</a> to send explosives experts and robots to help remove the mines, and is <a href="https://rbth.com/news/2016/03/26/moscow-to-assist-sending-of-unesco-mission-to-syrias-palmyra-after-its-liberation-from-isil-diplomat_579277">working with UNESCO</a> to send a mission of experts to assess the damage and begin the task of restoration. Abdulkarim has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/26/palmyra-restoration-isis-syria">promised a blueprint for reconstruction</a> by next month: “We will assess how much damage the stones suffered and we will re-use them in order to scientifically put back the temples…we have the plans and the images and we will rebuild the missing portions until the temples of Bel and Baalshamin are rebuilt.”</div>
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Marianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12716169289017896435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-92045309275825904072016-02-20T10:58:00.000+00:002016-02-20T10:58:33.886+00:00Sex Pistols' photographer threatens to sue Elizabeth Peyton for copyright infringement <div style="text-align: justify;">
Dennis Morris, renowned photographer and artist, well-known for his photographs of musicians and cultural icons such as Bob Marley and the Sex Pistols, is considering bringing a lawsuit against New York artist Elisabeth Peyton for her painting "John Lydon, Destroyed" – created in 1994, portraying John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten).</div>
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According to <a href="http://theartnewspaper.com/market/sex-pistols-photographer-accuses-artist-elizabeth-peyton-of-copyright-infringement-/" target="_blank">Morris</a> the painting is too similar to a photograph of the singer that he took in 1977, thereby infringing his copyright. Meanwhile, the painting was withdrawn from Sotheby's contemporary art sale on 11 February, at the consignor's request. </div>
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Morris – who owns all copyright in all the photographs he took of Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotton –previously filed a copyright infringement suit against Peyton in 2014 for the unauthorised use of his photographs in creating derivative artworks, which were reproduced on garments sold at Target stores. In that case, Morris claimed that at least three of Peyton's works depicting the two Sex Pistols' members infringed his copyright in his photographs of Vicious and Lydon, which were published in the 1991 book "Never mind the B*ll*cks: A photographic Record of the Sex Pistols Tour." </div>
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At that time, Peyton denied all allegations and claimed fair use. The case was settled out of court last year. I wonder if fair use could be deemed a valid defence in this new case of appropriation of art, considering the <a href="http://aandalawblog.blogspot.it/2013/05/us-court-of-appeals-reverses-previous.html" target="_blank">criteria </a>outlined in the leading case Prince v Cariou. What do you think?</div>
Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00521285567302038210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-56588712047193670972016-02-18T23:50:00.000+00:002016-02-19T16:21:13.359+00:00Experts call on UK government to sign the 1954 Hague Convention this year<div style="margin-bottom: 14pt; margin-top: 14pt;">
Members of the House of Lords and leading cultural heritage experts are lobbying the UK government to ratify the <b><a href="http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13637&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html">1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict</a></b> (the ‘<b>Hague Convention</b>’) in light of reports of extensive destruction and trafficking in cultural heritage property in Syria and Iraq by the Islamic State. As the only Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council not to have signed, the government is being urged to deliver on its pledge last year to sign ‘at the first opportunity’ in a renewed campaign led by the <a href="http://ukblueshield.org.uk/"><b>UK National Committee of the Blue Shield</b></a>. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 14pt; margin-top: 14pt;">
<b>Hague Convention </b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 14pt; margin-top: 14pt;">
The Hague Convention was the first international treaty aimed at protecting cultural heritage in the context of war and which highlighted the concept of common heritage. It was adopted in 1954 in response to the widespread damage and looting of cultural property during World War II. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 14pt; margin-top: 14pt;">
The Convention requires states parties to prepare during peacetime for the safeguarding of cultural property against the foreseeable effects of armed conflict, and to respect cultural property situated within their territory as well as in other states. This includes undertaking to prohibit any form of theft, pillage or misappropriation of cultural property, and refraining from reprisals against such property. If occupying another state, states parties should support the competent national authorities in preserving its cultural property. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 14pt; margin-top: 14pt;">
The Convention also specifies a protective emblem to facilitate the identification of protected cultural property during armed conflict, known as the Blue Shield. A triple use of that sign designates exceptionally important cultural property under special protection. This led to the creation of the International Committee of the Blue Shield, which works to protect the world's cultural heritage threatened by wars and natural disasters and is described as the cultural equivalent of the Red Cross.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhijzq2SxY2bzqKt1NOkl41thO7F1UP3qpN3Uic0ddmrkJkaCuXHeB080XbWjaSNMuPdXjWCpt25bwD41C_li1XKZCns4Zy1MM6Oaw6U2vwwrAEdfXAX-ke-LJaUy6mqJhJFHz7XK9s45U/s1600/p07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhijzq2SxY2bzqKt1NOkl41thO7F1UP3qpN3Uic0ddmrkJkaCuXHeB080XbWjaSNMuPdXjWCpt25bwD41C_li1XKZCns4Zy1MM6Oaw6U2vwwrAEdfXAX-ke-LJaUy6mqJhJFHz7XK9s45U/s400/p07.jpg" width="222" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The
Blue Shield symbol near a staff entrance at the Kunsthistorisches
Museum in Vienna<br />
(Photo: Corine Wegener/Getty Conservation Institute)</td></tr>
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<b>Ratification by the UK government </b><br />
<br />
The UK remains ‘arguably the most significant military power’ and the only one with extensive military involvements abroad not to have ratified the Hague Convention, according to the UK Blue Shield. Its fellow Permanent Members on the Security Council have already done so - Russia in 1957, China in 2000, France in 1957, and the US in 2009.<br />
<br />
The UK government has appeared close to ratifying the Convention on many occasions since 1954, announcing its commitment in 2004 after the adoption of the Second Protocol in 1999 (which the UK was involved in negotiating) addressed their concerns over the Convention’s shortcomings. A draft <a href="http://old.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/cultural_property/6630.aspx">Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill</a> was even published in January 2008, but it progressed no further despite only minor modifications being required. The UK government again announced plans to ratify ‘<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33213911">at the first opportunity</a>’ in June 2015, and in January 2016 the Minister of State for Culture Ed Vaizey declared the government’s ‘firm commitment’ to introduce new legislation enabling ratification of the Convention and its two Protocols ‘<a href="http://ukblueshield.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/vaizey-2016-02-01.pdf">at the earliest opportunity</a>’.<br />
<br />
The government has tiptoed around committing to a firm deadline for signing the Convention, choosing instead to focus attention on ad hoc cultural heritage initiatives. At the end of last year it announced £30m of funding for the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-scheme-to-protect-cultural-sites-from-destruction">establishment of the Cultural Protection Fund</a>, which is intended to fund a team of local experts to stabilise afflicted sites in Iraq, and begin the process of reconstructing and preserving cultural artefacts. The Army has declared its intention to recruit a team of ‘<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/12057177/Army-sign-up-Monument-Men-to-save-treasures-from-warzones.html">Monuments Men’</a> - specialists who will deploy to warzones alongside commanders to advise on how to locate, protect and save cultural riches in the area they are fighting.<br />
<br />
However, with no real framework or commitment in place for protecting cultural heritage in wartime, the UK’s ‘dithering’ over the Hague Convention has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/apr/18/lord-renfrew-iraq-nimrud-hague-isis-islamic-state">described</a> as “pathetic – it leaves Britain looking shamefully inept”. In a House of Lords debate on 14 January <a href="http://theartnewspaper.com/news/conservation/lords-put-pressure-on-uk-government-to-sign-hague-convention-this-year/">reported by the Art Newspaper</a>, Baroness Andrews stated that there is a ‘growing sense of urgency’ to sign the Convention following ‘grotesque failures in Iraq’ and ‘increasing barbarity in Syria’. With cross-party support - including from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; the Department for Overseas Development; and the Ministry of Defence - it is hard to understand the UK government’s reluctance to ratify. If it is part of a blanket policy to avoid ratifying any of the UNESCO cultural heritage protection treaties - including the <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/illicit-trafficking-of-cultural-property/1970-convention/">1970 Convention</a> on illicit trafficking, whose Secretariat has offered on several occasions to mediate in the <a href="http://aandalawblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/elgin-marbles-british-museum-rejects.html">UK's ongoing Parthenon marbles dispute with the Greek government</a> - then it is looking like an increasingly difficult position to defend.<br />
<br />
The UK Blue Shield urges supporters to write to their MP using the template which can be found <a href="http://ukblueshield.org.uk/reminder-uk-blue-shield-renews-calls-for-britains-ratification-of-the-1954-hague-convention/">here</a>. More information on the UK Blue Shield’s campaign can be found at <a href="http://ukblueshield.org.uk/">http://ukblueshield.org.uk/</a> or by contacting Philip Deans at <a href="mailto:p.deans@newcastle.ac.uk">p.deans@newcastle.ac.uk</a>.<br />
<br />
Further information about the Hague Convention, its Protocols and the work of the International Committee of the Blue Shield can be found on the UNESCO website <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/armed-conflict-and-heritage">here</a>.Marianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12716169289017896435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-16820827842156110792015-12-09T13:13:00.000+00:002015-12-09T13:13:23.346+00:00Copyright infringement and public domain artworks: German museum sues Wikimedia Last week Wikimedia <a href="http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/11/23/lawsuit-public-domain-art/">announced</a> that it is being sued by a German museum for copyright infringement after 17 images of public domain works of art were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjezz0LfD0sAbXTySdzlB1S7rzVUzZxCHUAO3k-QSuwIF6BzRJkSiXhOdHbMyNKl0Ld56rwvEglT8YEXQMaL3U578u3G2Qa__F-jB1b-YZRZy7HYCd19v2z-FnjiUtx32qUgxzn6_aA2RU/s1600/Mannheim_Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum_Weltkulturen_D5_20100809.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjezz0LfD0sAbXTySdzlB1S7rzVUzZxCHUAO3k-QSuwIF6BzRJkSiXhOdHbMyNKl0Ld56rwvEglT8YEXQMaL3U578u3G2Qa__F-jB1b-YZRZy7HYCd19v2z-FnjiUtx32qUgxzn6_aA2RU/s320/Mannheim_Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum_Weltkulturen_D5_20100809.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reiss Engelhorn Museum © <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mannheim_Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum_Weltkulturen_D5_20100809.jpg">Rudolf Stricker/Wikimedia</a></td></tr>
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The works of art in question are housed in the Reiss Engelhorn Museum in Mannheim, one of the largest publicly-owned museums in southern Germany. Those works are no longer protected by copyright. However, German copyright law may apply to photographs of public domain works, depending on factors such as the amount of skill and effort exercised, the creativity and originality of the photograph, and the actual art itself. The museum asserts that the images taken of those works are new creations protected by copyright as the photographer exercised the requisite time, skill and effort.<br />
<br />
The lawsuit sheds light on shifting copyright licensing practices by museums and cultural institutions towards wider public access and use. Although licensing image reproduction rights has traditionally provided a significant stream of revenue for museums and galleries (for example, the National Portrait Gallery reported £334,000 in revenue from reproduction rights in 2011/12), institutions have increasingly provided free online access to their collections under the terms of Creative Commons (CC) licences. These range from the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/about/cc0">CC0 “no copyright reserved” licence</a>, which effectively means relinquishing all copyright and similar rights held in a work and dedicating those rights to the public domain (as used <a href="http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/43381">by Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum</a>, which has provided free online access to all its paintings and granted the right to download and use reproductions) to the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY “attribution” licence</a>, whereby licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works if they credit the author or licensor (as used by <a href="https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Case_Studies/Highlights_from_SMK,_The_National_Gallery_of_Denmark">Denmark’s Statens Museum for Kunst</a> in relation to its digital images and videos).<br />
<br />
These policy changes in favour of wider copyright licensing models may have been influenced by case law: the 1999 case of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/36_FSupp2d_191.htm">Bridgeman Art Library v Corel</a> resulted in a ruling that exact photographic copies of public domain images could not be protected by copyright in the United States because the copies lack originality, a decision that has been strongly debated by experts ever since. Although this decision is not technically binding upon UK courts, the New York court follows UK Privy Council dicta from <a href="http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKPC/1988/3.html">Interlego v Tyco Industries</a>: "skill, labor or judgment merely in the process of copying cannot confer originality”. <br />
<br />
<div>
It is perhaps because of these ambiguities in legal application that the 2009 dispute between the National Portrait Gallery and Wikimedia, where over 3000 images of public domain artworks from the NPG’s website were uploaded to Wikimedia, ended before it reached the court. At the time the NPG <a href="http://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/22082012-npg-changes-image-licensing-to-allow-free-downloads">said</a> it was "concerned that potential loss of licensing income from the high-resolution files threatens its ability to reinvest in digitisation". Nonetheless, in 2012 <a href="http://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/22082012-npg-changes-image-licensing-to-allow-free-downloads">it began to make changes</a> to its image licensing policy, allowing 53,000 low-resolution images to be downloaded free of charge for non-commercial uses via a Creative Commons licence.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ALVok9vLpESutT6dE1pkPbEGNrDF-IAUSxEvjwTyoklrcCbvof3ZI0ncoH_uw4B5IxMtC-cm4boAdmFtNmTrKSKorCyLlpmbYCqkUB-dNYae55HS0RN94sY33VCCAylqGSe9cyvHDe4/s1600/mw06772.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ALVok9vLpESutT6dE1pkPbEGNrDF-IAUSxEvjwTyoklrcCbvof3ZI0ncoH_uw4B5IxMtC-cm4boAdmFtNmTrKSKorCyLlpmbYCqkUB-dNYae55HS0RN94sY33VCCAylqGSe9cyvHDe4/s320/mw06772.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">William Wilberforce by Sir Thomas Lawrence, oil on canvas, 1828<br />
© <a href="http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/use-this-image.php?mkey=mw06772">National Portrait Gallery, London</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The European Commission has <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52008DC0513">expressed</a> its support of such initiatives: “it is important to stress the importance of keeping public domain works accessible after a format shift. In other words, works in the public domain should stay there once digitised and be made accessible through the internet.” This was reinforced by the <a href="http://pro.europeana.eu/files/Europeana_Professional/Publications/Public%20Domain%20Charter%20-%20EN.pdf">Europeana Charta</a> of 2010 that reads: “No other intellectual property right must be used to reconstitute exclusivity over Public Domain material. The Public Domain is an integral element of the internal balance of the copyright system. This internal balance must not be manipulated by attempts to reconstitute or obtain exclusive control via regulations that are external to copyright”.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Wikimedia’s lawyers have appealed to directly to public sentiment, declaring that restricting the dissemination of images of public domain works “impoverishes the cultural heritage of people worldwide” and “prevents people from exploring our shared global cultural heritage”, whilst undermining the role of copyright laws as a means of rewarding creativity and originality. It will be interesting to see whether the German court's approach in the Reiss Engelhorn Museum lawsuit upholds this view or leads to a reversal of the wider sharing of public domain works.<br />
<br />
Wikimedia’s statement can be found <a href="http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/11/23/lawsuit-public-domain-art/">here</a>.<br />
<br />
A full list of the affected images can be found <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_subject_to_Reiss_Engelhorn_Museum_lawsuit">here</a>.<br />
<br />
The GLAM-Wiki initiative ("galleries, libraries, archives, and museums" with Wikipedia) helps cultural institutions share their resources with the world through collaborative projects. Learn more <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM">here</a>.</div>
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Marianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12716169289017896435noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-66003429851536438502015-12-03T08:31:00.000+00:002015-12-03T08:31:15.742+00:00La Bella Principessa: a Da Vinci or a copy?The famous British art forger, Shaun Greenhalgh, who was imprisoned between 2007-2012, recently claimed to be the author of La Bella Principessa, a painting attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci, with an estimated value of $150 million.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY-vEiG3A0im7_f5WyfGl8bgKst_nRE91fWVw8goPNwvTjRvlogOgaEGdA4JmqJnQe24M3D85EGBIbXupD0WHxTxilGP-arZs12Viauce9poeEBrN03yJ_sRF5fyIJ59CdDBquIwEWQQVq/s1600/la+bella+principessa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY-vEiG3A0im7_f5WyfGl8bgKst_nRE91fWVw8goPNwvTjRvlogOgaEGdA4JmqJnQe24M3D85EGBIbXupD0WHxTxilGP-arZs12Viauce9poeEBrN03yJ_sRF5fyIJ59CdDBquIwEWQQVq/s1600/la+bella+principessa.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">La Bella Principessa (image: Wikipedia)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The attribution to the Italian painter has always been strongly challenged.<br />
<br />
The artwork was documented for the first time in 1998, when it was sold at a Christie’s auction as an early 19th century painting created in the style of the Italian Renaissance. The work was auctioned and sold for $21,800.<br />
<br />
In 2008, however, some experts concluded that, in fact, the painting was a Da Vinci, and from that time the work was exhibited in Italy as an authentic Da Vinci painting. The portrait, still in private hands, is now widely thought to depict the 13-year-old Bianca Sforza, the daughter of Ludovico Sforza, the Da Vinci patron. The work would have been commissioned on the eve of her marriage in 1496.<br />
<br />
This was confirmed in 2010, when Martin Kemp – one of the world's most famous Da Vinci experts, and emeritus professor of the History of Art at Oxford University – published a book entitled "La Bella Principessa: The story of the New Masterpiece by Leonardo Da Vinci," which stated that the painting was done by the famous Italian artist. It therefore followed that museums and other experts believed Kemp’s assessment.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, it may be that the Principessa is not be so Bella after all.
Most recently, Greenhalgh published a book of his memoirs, entitled "A Forger’s Tale," where he claims to have painted the painting in 1978, when he was working in a Co-op supermarket – with a girl called Sally, a cashier who Greenhalgh claims to have known in Bolton in 1975, being the alleged inspiration behind the girl portrayed in the painting.<br />
<br /><br />
<br />
This story shows how Leonardo Da Vinci has moved to the centre of an inflated industry of fakes. It is also a cautionary tale that art evaluation cannot be based exclusively on scientific analysis, but should also include human eye and expertise. Indeed, Kemp's authenticity claim of La Bella Principessa rests on testing its papers and materials, which date back at least 250 years ago: post-Da Vinci, but quite before Greenhalgh. Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00521285567302038210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-33012838937371493412015-11-26T23:59:00.000+00:002015-11-27T00:13:13.620+00:00Bye!<div class="MsoNormal">
This is just a quick post to say “goodbye”, now that I’m
retiring from active involvement in intellectual property. I have enjoyed my job of providing “back
page” support for Art & Artifice and wish the blog team the very best for a
productive and successful future. Thank
you, readers, too for the chance to share some fascinating insights with you
and to learn more about the legal side of the art trade than I imaged to exist
when I first became involved.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-40880945824849957722015-10-15T08:00:00.000+01:002015-10-15T08:39:48.804+01:00 Museum directors agree protocols to provide safe havens for endangered antiquities <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Amidst armed conflicts in Syria and Iraq, the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) has announced the release of protocols to help safeguard irreplaceable works of art and archeological materials that are currently in danger of destruction or trafficking.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC6GZUVCp2cz5Ep4jJIdQR50AZYjY5mQtGeWYx0oKm5TMbMVbgzRHKblZC9OFdCzfKUKCMEfoQj-VpJEU1FNSc918FhP1qpgyU0pkerFXr_RyfOg6ZLZzqc4XTD5I1ec1Zw_rjM9rWjrk/s1600/AA8.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC6GZUVCp2cz5Ep4jJIdQR50AZYjY5mQtGeWYx0oKm5TMbMVbgzRHKblZC9OFdCzfKUKCMEfoQj-VpJEU1FNSc918FhP1qpgyU0pkerFXr_RyfOg6ZLZzqc4XTD5I1ec1Zw_rjM9rWjrk/s400/AA8.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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The <a href="https://aamd.org/document/aamd-protocols-for-save-havens-for-works-of-cultural-significance-from-countries-in-crisis">Protocols for Safe Havens for Works of Cultural Significance from Countries in Crisis</a> provide a framework for museums to provide safe havens for works at risk from violent conflict, terrorism, or natural disasters.<br />
<br />
In a <a href="https://www.aamd.org/for-the-media/press-release/aamd-issues-protocols-to-protect-works-of-cultural-significance-in">press statement made earlier this month</a>, the AAMD states that the Protocols allow owners/depositors whose works are at risk of damage or destruction to request safe haven at an AAMD member museum, where the works will be held until they can be safely returned. All deposited works will be treated as loans, preventing any issues of title ownership arising at a later date. Details of those works will also be made publicly available on a new section of the <a href="https://www.aamd.org/object-registry">AAMD’s online Object Registry</a>, ensuring transparency. <br />
<br />
The Protocols consider the preservation of a work’s physical integrity as well as its safety, its provisions covering transport and storage, scholarly access, legal protections, exhibition, conservation issues, and the safe return of endangered works to the appropriate individuals or entities as soon as is feasible.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaEdc8xIX7iDYZc10mYfVNiiBTiVQfUsPdHBtJdEeWeAKFzhGUeYST-OHQmbDiC0V4tqYC1CdSiGyhWY2WC22byRg7tYE7uG3yb8srshgclAabvmsT2xwpxnhRnEQhnHyDshxiEWN5PeY/s1600/AA8+-+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaEdc8xIX7iDYZc10mYfVNiiBTiVQfUsPdHBtJdEeWeAKFzhGUeYST-OHQmbDiC0V4tqYC1CdSiGyhWY2WC22byRg7tYE7uG3yb8srshgclAabvmsT2xwpxnhRnEQhnHyDshxiEWN5PeY/s400/AA8+-+2.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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The AAMD has strongly encouraged its 240 members in the US, Canada, and Mexico to adopt these Protocols, and has invited museums around the world to use the Protocols in their efforts to protect endangered works. <br />
<br />
Whilst not legally binding, these Protocols are indicative of the shifting attitudes towards the importance of international cooperation and intervention in protecting cultural heritage, and their release coincides with the <a href="http://aandalawblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/cultural-heritage-destruction.html">first prosecution of cultural heritage destruction as a war crime</a>. <br />
<br />
“The scale of human suffering and loss of life that is taking place in Syria and other afflicted areas is devastating, and is compounded by the loss of unique works that are the record of different cultures and our shared humanity,” said Johnnetta Cole, President of the AAMD, and Director of the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. <br />
<br />
“The level of destruction and the intentional damage is deplorable and an attempt to eradicate cultural identity in tandem with the murder and repression of individuals. We stand with the international community in condemning these reprehensible acts of violence and brutal vandalism, and believe it is vital that we do everything in our power to help save endangered works for all people and for future generations.” <br />
<br />
The AAMD’s press statement can be read in full <a href="https://www.aamd.org/for-the-media/press-release/aamd-issues-protocols-to-protect-works-of-cultural-significance-in">here</a>. <br />
<br />
The full Protocols can be downloaded <a href="https://aamd.org/sites/default/files/document/Save%20Haven%20Protocols%2010%201%2015%20%282%29.pdf">here</a>. Marianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12716169289017896435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-75647472119799432862015-10-09T04:32:00.000+01:002015-10-09T04:53:08.957+01:00Cultural heritage destruction prosecuted as a war crime for the first time: Islamist militant appears before ICC<style>
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</style><b> In the first case of its kind, an alleged Islamist militant accused of destroying ancient monuments in Mali appeared last week at the International Criminal Court (ICC) charged with damaging humanity’s cultural heritage. It is the first time cultural heritage destruction has been prosecuted as a war crime; the ICC has traditionally focused on atrocities committed against individuals. </b><br />
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlwiiwoNDHhmdUgHB-0Cxf4iL6yHc1zDfaopTgCg_aay9jZwB_2EujyTnhLgiNSDoJ4F6WnMplMQEkBdcaag-URZhuE6_i_1zlYjDJwrg5lC8eCxTYlf-Jo-E1nkNGONS80xBrWkXCU8E/s1600/AA7+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlwiiwoNDHhmdUgHB-0Cxf4iL6yHc1zDfaopTgCg_aay9jZwB_2EujyTnhLgiNSDoJ4F6WnMplMQEkBdcaag-URZhuE6_i_1zlYjDJwrg5lC8eCxTYlf-Jo-E1nkNGONS80xBrWkXCU8E/s400/AA7+1.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><i>Ahmad
Al Faqi Al Mahdi appears at the ICC in the Hague, Netherlands</i> (Image: Robin van
Lonkhuijsen/AFP/Getty Images)</span></span></span></td></tr>
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<b>Charges</b><br /><br />Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi is charged with war crimes of directing attacks against historic religious monuments and buildings, including nine mausoleums and one mosque in Timbuktu, Mali. <br /><br />Al Mahdi, from the Ansar Tuareg tribe, was allegedly an active personality in the context of the occupation of Timbuktu, a ‘zealous member’ of Ansar Dine, a Tuareg extremist militia with links to al-Qaeda, and the head of the Hesbah (known as the ‘Manners' Brigade’), which enforced strict Islamist law in Timbuktu during civil unrest in Mali in 2012 and 2013. He is also charged with implementing the hardline Sharia law rulings of the so-called Islamic Court of Timbuktu, in particular the destruction of the nine mausoleums and the Sidi Yahia mosque.<br /><br />The situation in Mali was referred to the ICC by Mali’s government in 2012, and following an investigation a warrant for Al Mahdi’s arrest was issued in September 2015. Al Mahdi was arrested by the authorities of Niger and handed over to the ICC shortly afterwards.<br /><br /><br /><b>Timbuktu’s cultural heritage</b><br /><br />Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site known as the ‘city of 333 saints’, was an intellectual and spiritual capital and a centre for the propagation of Islam throughout Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries. The mausoleums of Timbuktu have long been pilgrimage destinations for the people of Mali and neighbouring countries. As shrines to Timbuktu's founding fathers, who were venerated as saints by most of the city's inhabitants, they were widely believed to protect the city from danger. But fundamentalists considered this practice blasphemous. Of the city’s 16 mausoleums, some dating as far back as the 13th century, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-18657463">14 were destroyed</a> during Ansar Dine’s occupation of the city in 2012, along with mosques and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/28/mali-timbuktu-library-ancient-manuscripts">approximately 4,000 ancient manuscripts</a>.<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAJPePMAlWQp-C6K-tm-Fb_2xcvD-cq54dU8FC2p_m9u6rxYac1XvXzI36u7Mv1-FdpNNvHj-OucEJV76mMldtpGVnF19qmPQ2QOjdEhACtPjAgAPHX8ijFuNc8n9gx8wn3dwf1C0h22A/s1600/AA7+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAJPePMAlWQp-C6K-tm-Fb_2xcvD-cq54dU8FC2p_m9u6rxYac1XvXzI36u7Mv1-FdpNNvHj-OucEJV76mMldtpGVnF19qmPQ2QOjdEhACtPjAgAPHX8ijFuNc8n9gx8wn3dwf1C0h22A/s400/AA7+2.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="media-captiontext"><span lang="EN-US"><i>Destruction of mausoleums and mosques during Timbuktu’s occupation</i></span></span><span lang="EN-US"> (Image: AFP)</span></span></span></div>
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<b><br /></b>
<b>What next?</b><br /><br />Following the defendant’s appearance before the Pre-Trial Chamber last week, a hearing is scheduled for 18 January 2016, where the Court will determine whether there is sufficient evidence to proceed to a full trial. <br /><br />This case is a watershed moment in the field of cultural heritage protection, and <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34398899">it has been suggested</a> that the Court consider investigating the Islamic State's destruction of ancient archaeological sites in Palmyra. However, as neither Iraq nor Syria is a member of the ICC, the Court is unable to intervene without a mandate from the UN Security Council.<br /><br />Meanwhile an initiative to reconstruct Timbuktu’s mausoleums led by the Malian government, UNESCO and international partners <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/1307/">is nearing completion</a>. “Here we have our response to extremism,” <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/1324/">said UNESCO’s Director-General</a>, “an example of the successful integration of culture in peace building and we must continue along this road.”<div class="MsoNormal">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1t-peGwf_nxTvFNLrEjzQjCli1uJ1-6a0UD5GP-FsObb4pdAcsPp6_Y23UJbLzfwNzS880jxlrbyYBPV95jnIxwy2sZkM06p_-viv7bBOepeqGPAWVWlj2Yqz_EDAAYxAxdiuL0Q_weg/s1600/AA7+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1t-peGwf_nxTvFNLrEjzQjCli1uJ1-6a0UD5GP-FsObb4pdAcsPp6_Y23UJbLzfwNzS880jxlrbyYBPV95jnIxwy2sZkM06p_-viv7bBOepeqGPAWVWlj2Yqz_EDAAYxAxdiuL0Q_weg/s400/AA7+3.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span class="ircsu"><span lang="EN-US">Reconstruction of Timbuktu’s mausoleums nears completion</span></span></i><span lang="EN-US"><i> </i>(Image: CRAterre/Thierry
Joffroy)</span></span></span></div>
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<br />The ICC’s case information sheet for The Prosecutor v. Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi can be found <a href="http://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/PIDS/publications/AlMahdiEng.pdf">here</a>.<br /><br />More information on Timbuktu’s cultural heritage can be found on the UNESCO World Heritage Site page <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/119">here</a>.<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span></span>Marianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12716169289017896435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-49677838491855198392015-10-08T10:09:00.001+01:002015-10-08T10:10:45.883+01:00"God Hates Renoir": A grass roots art critic speaks out<div class="MsoPlainText">
A strange tale of grass roots art criticism has unfolded in Boston this week. </div>
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An Instagram
account started by one Max Gellar, entitled Renoir Sucks at Painting, was taken
onto the streets of Boston. Protestors (reportedly, about six of them) stood
outside Boston's Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) carrying placards proclaiming that
'God Hates Renoir', 'Renoir Sucks', and the snappy 'ReNOir'. Their demand: MFA
should take down its Renoirs, replacing them with other works kept in its
storage vaults. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQLbC0SFnlX1lTYvELjsojrB3eLL7f9EWyUJWFgEux-LwK3Z2jQgueT3mE6VGIcwXskVDbJHS2eta68Wgkj-1VMpmkiInFnq_rZM5G6VHpU-M-hWLaCRtFpTkqd55Gf5788i96iZ_MPks/s1600/2399.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQLbC0SFnlX1lTYvELjsojrB3eLL7f9EWyUJWFgEux-LwK3Z2jQgueT3mE6VGIcwXskVDbJHS2eta68Wgkj-1VMpmkiInFnq_rZM5G6VHpU-M-hWLaCRtFpTkqd55Gf5788i96iZ_MPks/s320/2399.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Lane Turmer /AP</td></tr>
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'Why do so many
people think he’s good?' the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/oct/06/renoir-sucks-at-painting-protest-boston-max-geller">Guardian reports Gellar as asking</a>. 'Have you looked
at his paintings?' They are, according to him, 'empty calorie-laden steaming
piles', the decision to hang which in public galleries 'represents an act of aesthetic
terrorism'.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is not clear
how serious the protest is. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/renoir-haters-boston-museum_561439b1e4b0fad15919f23d">The Huffington Post reports</a> Gellar as saying it is
'meant to be taken more ironically than literally', but Gellar's more genuine
point appears to be the question of who is entitled to decide what deserves
space in national galleries. 'Curators,' he is reported to have said, 'lack the
courage to say, ‘Hey, wait, everybody’s been wrong this whole time.’ They’re
not looking at the paintings.' <o:p></o:p></div>
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Either way the
story is reminiscent of another, more famous instance of an art critic
attacking a painter's work: <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/turner-whistler-monet/who-what-when/ruskin-v-whistler">Whistler v Ruskin</a>, the 1878 libel case in which J M
Whistler sued the famous critic John Ruskin over his published letter
commenting on some of Whistler's paintings, in particular the impressionistic
Nocturne in Black and Gold: the Falling Rocket. Ruskin, in a pithy comment
worthy of Gellar, wrote that Whistler's work was like 'flinging a pot of paint
in the public's face', enraging Whistler until he finally took the matter to
the courts - rather to the amusement of the public, which was impressed neither by Ruskin's over-personal critique nor Whistler's arguably over-sensitive reaction. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_uVBCEMT4VeMzIOEficJFTRfc7tpyxw1N_RPP1Jc1EE0isg6sELyO8ZHY4SLZk4DujH0xvaGvkqtAnp9AceMCRpIiWgpxYzh_oaiZTde5F7_u_a6_fhn5DJKFq3NAAEV2Z4u9nAEJAA8/s1600/246171.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_uVBCEMT4VeMzIOEficJFTRfc7tpyxw1N_RPP1Jc1EE0isg6sELyO8ZHY4SLZk4DujH0xvaGvkqtAnp9AceMCRpIiWgpxYzh_oaiZTde5F7_u_a6_fhn5DJKFq3NAAEV2Z4u9nAEJAA8/s320/246171.jpg" width="241" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J M Whistler<br />
Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, <br />
The Detroit Institute of Arts </td></tr>
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Luckily for
Gellar, Renoir, who died in 1919, is not around to follow Whistler's lead and sue - it is a
general principle that the dead cannot be defamed. But even if he were alive he
might be put off by the outcome of that historic trial. The painter won, but
instead of the £1000 he had claimed, poor Whistler was given just one farthing
in nominal damages, leaving him in heavy debt due to paying his own costs.</div>
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Meanwhile, the MFA shows no
signs of bowing to public demand, and Renoir's works remain on view to offend
or delight, as the case may be. </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15884312880608875724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-84014650677673527522015-09-16T08:59:00.000+01:002015-09-16T08:59:40.050+01:00Anish Kapoor sued for leaving racist graffiti on his sculpture at Versailles<div style="text-align: justify;">
The British artist Anish Kapoor recently announced that right wing Versailles municipal councillor, Mr Fabien Bouglé, had filed a lawsuit against him and the president of the Palace of Versailles, Catherine Pégard, for choosing not to remove some racist graffiti from his sculpture "Dirty Corner".</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJXxFV5Jt-zxMli5_7_3J9yftvSWrTo_jFnrZAgpPoNT4bnIA-L6-17OpZ_YptwYCm8zta4ZVuhqb4B5f0tXHdIYb-UL1Jxr4Jii6PU6V-qlvmQJlyQgN70F1G1dTO9_AzWd-DJXlhyphenhyphenGIu/s1600/dirty+corner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJXxFV5Jt-zxMli5_7_3J9yftvSWrTo_jFnrZAgpPoNT4bnIA-L6-17OpZ_YptwYCm8zta4ZVuhqb4B5f0tXHdIYb-UL1Jxr4Jii6PU6V-qlvmQJlyQgN70F1G1dTO9_AzWd-DJXlhyphenhyphenGIu/s1600/dirty+corner.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dirty Corner by Anish Kapoor</td></tr>
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The complainant, Bouglé, said that the vandalized artwork now incites racial hatred and insults and should be cleaned.</div>
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The sculpture was installed last June in the gardens of the French Palace of Versailles and has since been vandalised twice. The first time, the artwork was cleaned after being splattered with yellow paint a few days after its installation, but, after the second attack, the artist decided to leave the anti-Semitic messages on the sculpture's exterior. </div>
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Although Kapoor strongly condemned the racist messages, he decided to leave them on the sculpture as a reminder of the intolerance and hate in the society. "<em>I had already questioned the wisdom of cleaning it after the first vandalism. This time, I am convinced that nothing should be removed from these slurs, from these words which belong to antisemitism that we'd rather forget</em>" Kapoor told <a href="http://www.lefigaro.fr/arts-expositions/2015/09/06/03015-20150906ARTFIG00107-anish-kapoor-l-oeuvre-vandalisee-restera-telle-quelle.php" target="_blank">le Figaro</a>.</div>
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His choice has opened a public debate. On one side, the French President, François Hollande, expressed his support for the artist, agreeing with Kapoor's decision. Likewise, the French Culture Minister, <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/anish-kapoor-dirty-corner-vandalized-again-331912" target="_blank">Fleur Pellerin</a>, said she respected Kapoor's choice, and said that the public debates surrounding Kapoor's decision were "<em>extremely interesting and raise the question of creative freedom</em>". </div>
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</div>
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On the other side, Kapoor's choice was criticised by Jonathan Jones of the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/08/anish-kapoor-dirty-corner-cleaned" target="_blank">Guardian</a>. Jones believes that Kapoor should reconsider his decision and clean the work, thereby not offering the vandals any publicity. According to the British journalist, the sculpture should be properly protected by the French Police and become a permanent addition to Versailles: that would be the true victory for culture over barbarism. </div>
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For the moment, notices explaining the vandalism to visitors have been installed next to the work, while the French lawsuit against Kapoor is ongoing. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEFUu69fIbC0Gw-zHvA5mmvNPagHr0rOxg8YWT7wfjeS7f1euAEhsQMjm963AUNbVKJG_jCOAt65agg6mHbnpfAKEtOmLgS6RfL-4Sa0SLEA9WlaRkOr1HVvHBxby_LFeMI9Crkm93BYZm/s1600/VANDALS+KAPOOR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEFUu69fIbC0Gw-zHvA5mmvNPagHr0rOxg8YWT7wfjeS7f1euAEhsQMjm963AUNbVKJG_jCOAt65agg6mHbnpfAKEtOmLgS6RfL-4Sa0SLEA9WlaRkOr1HVvHBxby_LFeMI9Crkm93BYZm/s320/VANDALS+KAPOOR.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Francois Guillot/ AFP Le Figaro</td></tr>
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Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00521285567302038210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-78799723298880293502015-09-13T11:40:00.001+01:002015-09-13T12:13:16.573+01:00Art Buff returns to Folkestone<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZQKFfFKNUuCZPyr_XEQWk_FgznVncZMByY4xfRsk3iyfevQyzHzYOGRAlSSlOwqLNWSCPcf4R6feuEpzlSyANPZ2_NYsnXcV0hwDQq-A5YhJbzagh37QFVGPVYeGoBsNJxakxtBujyw/s1600/artbuff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZQKFfFKNUuCZPyr_XEQWk_FgznVncZMByY4xfRsk3iyfevQyzHzYOGRAlSSlOwqLNWSCPcf4R6feuEpzlSyANPZ2_NYsnXcV0hwDQq-A5YhJbzagh37QFVGPVYeGoBsNJxakxtBujyw/s400/artbuff.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Art Buff</span></i></td></tr>
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"Banksy artwork set to return to Folkestone after lengthy legal battle" is the title of<b><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/sep/11/banksy-artwork-set-to-return-to-folkestone"> this item</a></b>, reported a couple of days ago in the Guardian. It reads, in relevant part, as follows:<br />
<blockquote>
A Banksy artwork ripped from a wall in Folkestone and shipped to the US is to be returned to the seaside town after a lengthy legal battle, in the first example of a Banksy being returned to public ownership. A British judge ruled on Friday morning that the mural, titled Art Buff, was to be returned to the place where it was originally daubed by the elusive graffiti artist during the<b><a href="http://www.folkestonetriennial.org.uk/"> Folkestone Triennial</a></b> last year.<br />
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The artwork, which depicts a woman looking at an empty plinth while listening to headphones, appeared overnight last September. It was verified by the elusive artist on his website, with the words: “Part of Folkestone Triennial. Sort of.” The piece attracted hundreds of visitors but just weeks after its appearance the owners of the amusement arcade on which it was painted chiselled it out of the wall and sent it to a gallery in New York – which valued it at almost half a million pounds. It was later sent to an art fair in Miami where it failed to sell.<br />
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The legal challenge to return the artwork to Kent was launched by Folkestone-based arts charity the <b><a href="http://www.creativefoundation.org.uk/">Creative Foundation</a></b>, with the financial backing of a benefactor, who felt that Art Buff belonged to the people of Folkestone and not to a wealthy collector. ... </blockquote>
<blockquote>
The piece, he said, had been cut out under the supervision of art dealer Robin Barton who trades under the name of <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankrobber_London">Bankrobber </a></b>and specialises in Banksy pieces.
<br />
<br />
After investigating the matter, lawyers acting for the Creative Foundation discovered that the Godden family, who had ordered the removal and sale of the Banksy, only owned the leasehold – not the freehold – of the arcade where Art Buff had been drawn. An injunction against selling the artwork was taken out in early 2015, and on Friday morning judge Richard Arnold ruled that the tenant had “no reasonable prospect of establishing that it was entitled, let alone obliged, to remove the mural” and ordered its return to Folkestone. ...<br />
<br />
In the past Bansky has condemned the removal and private sale of his artworks as disgusting. In April last year 10 of Banksy’s most expensive murals, all of which had been removed from public spaces, were sold at auction in London for between £100,000 and £500,000 each.
<br />
<br />
Upton said he hoped the case, which was the first example of a Banksy being returned to public ownership, would inspire others in the future. “People should fight to keep these works in the public realm,” he said. “That’s how they came about and where they were intended to stay – not that I have any idea what Banksy’s intentions are.”</blockquote>
While it's good to see that this piece of artwork has been saved, it is worrying that the fate of a piece of art should be made to hinge on something as arbitrary was whether the wall upon which it was painted was held by a leaseholder or by the freeholder.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-43078021884016849972015-08-18T07:37:00.000+01:002015-08-18T09:00:27.333+01:00The Art of Protecting DesignWe are lucky to have <a href="http://aandalawblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/the-reach-of-lens.html">another guest post</a> from the wonderful Molly Torsen Stech:
Knowing that other attorneys gracefully bridge the different bodies of intellectual property law more often than I, I recently found a post on the 1709 Blog very interesting; it considered the various ways in which interior design might be protected by intellectual property laws. In particular, it considered copyright, design rights, and trademark rights; and it generated some interesting comments.<br />
<br />
Of course, “interior design” can comprise a wide array of meanings. Is it the totality of the look and feel of a single room in a home or is it a hotel’s overarching color scheme and atmosphere, complete with floral arrangements, wallpaper, and furniture style and placement that comprise interior design?
Given that Serbia has recently amended its design law, Israel is considering a new design law, the European Commission may publish the results of an evaluation of the legal and economic aspects of its design protection in early 2016, and given the fascinating designs on view at the ongoing Expo in one of my favorite cities, some esoteric musings on the nexus of IP laws are perhaps warranted.<br />
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In struggling to understand the term “interior design,” it is also useful to spend some time parsing the term “<i>industrial design</i>” (and even just “design”), in an effort to understand how to differentiate design from art; and art from commercial identification, and so on. Needless to say, none of this is straightforward. As McKenna and Strandburg note, “<i>[p]roduct design lies at the intersection of the patent, copyright, and trademark regimes. Useful articles often have both utilitarian and aesthetic aspects, and at times their features serve as source identifiers in the marketplace.</i>”
The United States handles these amorphous questions under copyright law, design patent law, and/or sometimes trademark (trade dress) law.<br />
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Unlike the European Union, and other intellectual property regimes, it does not have a <i>sui generis</i> design law under which to protect designs specifically, although the United States did recently implement the procedure-oriented and WIPO-administered Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs. Given the nearly undefinable nature of “design,” and the often patentable or copyrightable objects to which design is affixed or in which it is embedded, it is of course arguable whether a domestic <i>sui generis</i> design law is helpful. The United States Patent and Trademark Office, in its definition of “design,” through the lens of design patents, notes:
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<blockquote>
Since a design is manifested in appearance, the subject matter of a design patent application may relate to the configuration or shape of an article, to the surface ornamentation applied to an article, or to the combination of configuration and surface ornamentation. Design is inseparable from the article to which it is applied and cannot exist alone merely as a scheme of surface ornamentation. It must be a definite, preconceived thing, capable of reproduction and not merely the chance result of a method.</blockquote>
But to obtain a design patent, the subject matter must be an article of manufacture (a tangible, man-made object); and it must be original, novel, non-obvious, and ornamental; the characteristics of these adjectives have developed through case law. U.S. copyright law does not protect design (with the improbable exception of a vessel hull design) embodied in a useful article (including clothing, furniture, and household appliances) unless the thing is expressed separately from that useful article. Fabric design, for example, can be copyrighted if it is creative enough, but a dress design made of that fabric cannot be copyrighted because U.S. copyright law perceives the dress as a useful article.
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Copyright does not protect the mechanical or utilitarian aspects of. . .works of craftsmanship. Copyright may, however, protect any pictorial, graphic, or sculptural authorship that can be identified separately from the utilitarian aspects of an object. Thus a useful article can have both copyrightable and uncopyrightable features. For example, a carving on the back of a chair or a floral relief design on silver flatware can be protected by copyright, but the design of the chair or the flatware itself cannot, even though it may be aesthetically pleasing.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiubHNUyvxg6C-2Td72vRDLXmVbirLxNro49pbdsRTMo_d42zAa9KFItEEVg_QHrf1arML0o1sG7uOhtGDrF4mJ6n2SXkHW_lZbaIpdC6LXNuxlxUrkaFWE2PfygF1-0zUQ8pn11LCaA5I/s1600/Fior+D%2527Olio.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiubHNUyvxg6C-2Td72vRDLXmVbirLxNro49pbdsRTMo_d42zAa9KFItEEVg_QHrf1arML0o1sG7uOhtGDrF4mJ6n2SXkHW_lZbaIpdC6LXNuxlxUrkaFWE2PfygF1-0zUQ8pn11LCaA5I/s320/Fior+D%2527Olio.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Alessi Fior d'Olio</td></tr>
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What, then, does a company do with something like Alessi’s Fior d’Olio, designed by Marta Sansoni, for example? What is its protection strategy in the United States versus other jurisdictions, keeping in mind that forms of protection are generally not mutually exclusive?<br />
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The Fior d’Olio is essentially an olive oil receptacle, pourer and cap. The cap “fits into the neck of the bottle, allowing you to pour only as much as you need on your food, while controlling the oxidation process that begins as soon as the bottle is opened.” While its description sounds much more functional than it does aesthetic, the Fior d’Olio’s appearance is quite charming and elegant and its lever looks like an olive leaf. Is the leaf conceptually separable from the receptacle so as to achieve eligibility for copyright protection? Perhaps, theoretically, but the leaf piece in itself may not actually cross the threshold to adequate creativity for copyright purposes. Trade dress protection is likely unavailable since a consumer is not likely to immediately recognize the receptacle as an Alessi product (in comparison, consider the shape of a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne, which is recognizable as such.)<br />
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This musing is not so timely as it is summertime food for thought. Lawyerly creativity may reach its zenith in creating a strategy for protecting these gems of manufacture that overlap IP regimes, both within a single jurisdiction, and worldwide.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-48342423524283441862015-08-07T16:29:00.002+01:002015-08-18T08:57:10.099+01:00Kindness or Catastrophe? Australia's experience of resale royalty rights<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBDJKZrXOuITGmpjkOc5UECggMJ6NWBb_yW3VBH6TRGijhDWbKu9HfIjtBkrCe2hN0baHkiAix7jLRhkHGDxl44LY89RyYy69yFq31cw6iXwQYkUlI659JmcG6g4Zr3lW7ZwzcyFLxdA/s1600/walker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBDJKZrXOuITGmpjkOc5UECggMJ6NWBb_yW3VBH6TRGijhDWbKu9HfIjtBkrCe2hN0baHkiAix7jLRhkHGDxl44LY89RyYy69yFq31cw6iXwQYkUlI659JmcG6g4Zr3lW7ZwzcyFLxdA/s400/walker.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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"Artist’s Resale Royalty in Australia: Strong evidence of a catastrophic decline in both sales and prices: Australia's Art Market Down 50%" is the title of an article in AAD (Art Antiques Design) by Australian artist and artists' resale royalty agitator<b><a href="http://www.art-antiques-design.com/component/jsn/John%20R%20Walker?Itemid=101"> John R. Walker</a></b>. According to the abstract:
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<blockquote>
In this article, I shall give an overview of the highly corrosive impact, which the Artist’s Resale Royalty (ARR) has had, and is having on Australia’s Art market. The impact of ARR also appears to have had an entirely adverse reaction on the UK’s Art Market; with trade in a large proportion of valuable secondary market Art works now, quite obviously, taking flight to places like New York, Switzerland and Miami. Below, as you will see, many reputable, and governmental sources have been cited. Due to the implementation of this scheme, we, in Australia, have sadly seen our indigenous Art sector virtually wither away right in front of our eyes since the ARR was introduced back in 2010.
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<br />
I’m an Australian Artist, I’m not being paid to write this, and the below is an honest appraisal of what we are facing here due to the ARR, and it is written based on my personal experience, and on factual publicly available information.</blockquote>
This article powerfully and persuasively puts the case for taking an urgent look at a scheme which, however well-intentioned its implementation may have been, appears to be in need of careful reappraisal.<br />
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To read this article in full, click <b><a href="http://www.art-antiques-design.com/art/519-artist-s-resale-royalty-in-australia-strong-evidence-of-a-catastrophic-decline-in-both-sales-and-prices">here</a></b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-86905363740686062092015-06-28T22:05:00.001+01:002015-06-28T22:06:19.057+01:00Web-only art auctions: how will they work?"Goodman and de Pury launch web-only auctions with promises to keep down fees" is the title of a piece of news from Roland Arkell, writing for the Antiques Trade Gazette ("the weekly bible of the fine arts and antiques industry"), <b><a href="http://www.antiquestradegazette.com/news/2015/jun/23/goodman-and-de-pury-launch-web-only-auctions-with-promises-to-keep-down-fees/#sthash.2HeqZH0N.dpuf">here</a>. </b>According to this piece, in relevant part:<br />
<blockquote>
Two senior members of the international auctioneering profession launch separate online-only ventures this week. Tim Goodman and Simon de Pury are embracing the digital revolution, looking to challenge a centuries-old business model with a footloose approach to selling art and antiques at auction.<br />
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Goodman's Fine Art Bourse (<a href="https://fineartbourse.com/"><b>FAB</b></a>) hopes to gain traction in the market via an innovative pricing model. Meanwhile de Pury's <b><a href="http://www.depurydepury.com/">eponymously titled firm</a></b> is promising to reduce buyer's fees to 15%.
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<br />
The headline statistic at FAB is that they will charge vendor's and buyer's fees of just 5% with a 72-hour packing and shipping service - so often a barrier to entry for bidding online - 'free' for both buyers and sellers.
They add that transaction charges will be exempt of sales taxes or artist resale royalties, as sales are processed through headquarters in Hong Kong.
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<br />
However, the devil is in the detail. Alongside the 5% cut, consigners and purchasers will each be billed an additional fixed fee to cover other charges. The 'fixed lot selling fee' of $330 applies for items estimated up to $100,000 and $1000 for items estimated at over $100,000. This covers collection, storage and photography while the 'fixed lot buying fee' at the same rates pays for packing, shipping and delivery.
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<br />
Sellers will also responsible for paying insurance costs of 1%. ... the pricing model is designed to reward sellers of higher-priced items, but at lower thresholds it is less attractive.<br />
... </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Goodman believes the traditional auction business model - one where an auction house can take proceeds of up to 50% from the sale of a work of art - is no longer sustainable.
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<br />
"Something has to give. All we have done is apply digital technology to some of the good old ways and cut costs," he says. ..."</blockquote>
It will be fascinating to see whether and, if so, how these two new-technology approaches will catch with purchasers who are in many cases both traditional in outlook and idiosyncratic in their habits. Will they take business from the well-established auction houses or will they create and develop new business? And, from a lawyer's point of view, it would be good to know a bit about choice of law and forum for the settlement of any disputes that might arise from the use of these services.<br />
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<i>Thanks go to John Walker for drawing my attention to this development.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-26736240728867202792015-06-05T17:30:00.000+01:002015-06-05T17:30:07.817+01:00Dammed if you do, damned if you don't: are sculptors worth more than scalers?"Hoover Dam artist wins $1.3 million in copyright lawsuit" is the striking headline of an article by Henry Brean in the Las Vegas Review Journal, <b><a href="http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/crime-courts/hoover-dam-artist-wins-13-million-copyright-lawsuit">here</a></b>. According to the author:
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<blockquote>
"An artist has won almost $1.35 million in a lawsuit over a sculpture commemorating workers who were paid $5 per day to risk their lives during the construction of Hoover Dam. A jury in Las Vegas federal court ruled last month in favor of artist Steven Liguori, creator of the bronze statue known as the “High Scaler” at Hoover Dam.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitLb58i1WgYws3hwFafQGG0mRoktFMZDZmTxCZzjpu0YJDQXCKmUoy9cLk1pFYPLEVCqUuvM-kqdj1DrH7oiwUqcvdKiYKiUKV8Pakj6iyNaE3bSFHDBQl2vxfGDxAZhMoE5nf71srEQ/s1600/hoo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitLb58i1WgYws3hwFafQGG0mRoktFMZDZmTxCZzjpu0YJDQXCKmUoy9cLk1pFYPLEVCqUuvM-kqdj1DrH7oiwUqcvdKiYKiUKV8Pakj6iyNaE3bSFHDBQl2vxfGDxAZhMoE5nf71srEQ/s200/hoo.jpg" width="196" /></a></div>
In 2011, Liguori sued Bert Hansen, longtime owner and operator of the Hoover Dam Snacketeria and the High Scaler Cafe at the dam, after the artist said he was cheated out of royalty payments and his work was used without permission for merchandise and marketing. According to the lawsuit, Hansen commissioned Liguori to create “High Scaler” for a $166,000 fee and a share of the proceeds from merchandise based on the sculpture as well as the artist’s other dam-related creations.<br />
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U.S. District Judge George Foley ordered Hansen to pay Liguori $1.2 million for breaching their agreement and $150,000 in other damages.
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<br />
The sculpture at the center of the legal dispute is modeled on a photograph of a high scaler, a special breed of Hoover Dam laborer willing to clear loose rock from the walls of Black Canyon while dangling from ropes tied to clifftop eye bolts.
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<br />
“They were the celebrity laborers on the dam,” said Dennis McBride, director of the Nevada State Museum at the Springs Preserve and a leading Hoover Dam historian. “They’d be sitting in their bosun’s chairs, and over the side they went.”
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<br />
... The Las Vegas law firm Hutchison &Steffen, which represented Liguori, announced the final judgment in the lawsuit Thursday. “A jury of his peers found that he just wasn’t treated fairly,” Hutchison &Steffen partner Todd Moody said of Liguori in a written statement. “Not only did they breach the contract they had with him, they also infringed on the copyright he had. And to be awarded the highest statutory amount was kind of the icing on the cake.” ...".</blockquote>
Damages for breach of contract and copyright infringement are nothing new and, by the standards of litigation in the United States today -- especially when compared with the massive damages awarded by juries for patent infringement in the same jurisdiction -- $1,3 million seems almost trivial. However, the juxtaposition of that sum against "$ 5 an hour" makes it sound unfairly large. There is also the implication that it's somehow unfair for an artist to gain more financially from his art than is paid to laborers who risk life and limb while dangling from ropes, though the truth of the matter is that the supply of monumental sculptors is far more limited than the availability of high scalers, a factor that is inevitably going to be reflected in the contract terms offered to Liguori in the first place.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-52021406015080345152015-05-29T12:39:00.000+01:002015-05-29T12:39:22.938+01:00US returns looted art to ItalyThis week saw the return by the United States of 26 pieces of art to Italy. Each work had been separately looted and subsequently smuggled out of Italy and into the US.<br />
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A Repatriation Ceremony was held at the US Embassy in Rome to celebrate the return of the pieces to Italy. The ceremony was a culmination of a lengthy investigation carried out collaboratively between the US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale (TPC).<br />
<br />
In his <a href="http://italy.usembassy.gov/news-events/repatriation-ceremony-phillips.html">speech</a> at the Ceremony, US Ambassador to Italy, John R. Phillips, noted that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Italy is blessed with a rich cultural legacy and therefore cursed to suffer the pillaging of important cultural artifacts. The collaboration between agents from HSI and investigators from the TPC has borne fruit in returning some important artifacts to their rightful home in Italy. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The plundering of historical and cultural artifacts is among the oldest forms of cross-border organized crime. INTERPOL estimates that the illicit trading in cultural property produces more than $9 billion in profits each year – only human trafficking, narcotics and weapons trades generate more illicit revenue. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The crime may be ancient, but the perpetrators are very modern. The use of the Internet has provided these criminals the ability to acquire, transport, advertise and sell valuable cultural property swiftly, easily and stealthily and while making it easier to evade detection by law enforcement agencies. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Fortunately, the customs laws of the United States allows agencies such as HSI and CBP the ability to seize, forfeit and ultimately return cultural property that is brought into the United States illegally." </blockquote>
Some of the artworks that were returned include:<br />
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Sleeping Beauty, a 1,800 year-old, ancient Roman marble sarcophagus lid of sleeping Ariadne, which investigation revealed was smuggled out of Italy. HSI New York special agents seized the sarcophagus lid with a warrant issued from the Eastern District of New York.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRHzPrn5XK_yOqPX_y0bIhAFPC4NXsACYDnfUdR4tLSwSD_yZ4BJXFml-TdSYjIxVgJVdsUBCU6zSoVPyrF6-FRgfYgEJeabhcWbCTCVKwJdBj7_iolDZJfnmq2c6wkH5WKHj7DL03XA7X/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-05-29+at+12.24.17.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRHzPrn5XK_yOqPX_y0bIhAFPC4NXsACYDnfUdR4tLSwSD_yZ4BJXFml-TdSYjIxVgJVdsUBCU6zSoVPyrF6-FRgfYgEJeabhcWbCTCVKwJdBj7_iolDZJfnmq2c6wkH5WKHj7DL03XA7X/s200/Screen+Shot+2015-05-29+at+12.24.17.png" width="200" /></a></div>
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A 5th century B.C. Etruscan black figured Kalpis, which is believed to have been looted in Italy and smuggled into the United States in 1981. After an investigation, our HSI office in Cleveland, Ohio, seized the Kalpis.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIXFFQCkY17W2sZGqtQ-8nbvJ4v6jU4USAmoxMBDcBIGjUC_IithHRxQjgTC5CnOsXGvOLfRwqVy928YdqsPr8qCPzNK7QnpU1dUIeYeZ3rPg7AwL1U0qFsxePxe70FJF6zJj1h4dMVMUB/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-05-29+at+12.25.38.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIXFFQCkY17W2sZGqtQ-8nbvJ4v6jU4USAmoxMBDcBIGjUC_IithHRxQjgTC5CnOsXGvOLfRwqVy928YdqsPr8qCPzNK7QnpU1dUIeYeZ3rPg7AwL1U0qFsxePxe70FJF6zJj1h4dMVMUB/s200/Screen+Shot+2015-05-29+at+12.25.38.png" width="152" /></a></div>
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A 5th century B.C. red-figured Attic Volute Krater attributed to the Methyse Painter. This Kalpis was seized by HSI St. Paul, Minnesota.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQTwCVQUpLi_w6IrPC4c9T8QqK6zLJ79rUb8d5rTYDgunw96GLPLjtBhRjRd1-fvKC2XbDcrJ4cc4GAXbljii4TI-QtSXuXTmIzgSvCiiVtB5m0fRPgMUdk9cgMn2O3H4hBj-9KwiI4rT3/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-05-29+at+12.26.47.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQTwCVQUpLi_w6IrPC4c9T8QqK6zLJ79rUb8d5rTYDgunw96GLPLjtBhRjRd1-fvKC2XbDcrJ4cc4GAXbljii4TI-QtSXuXTmIzgSvCiiVtB5m0fRPgMUdk9cgMn2O3H4hBj-9KwiI4rT3/s200/Screen+Shot+2015-05-29+at+12.26.47.png" width="133" /></a></div>
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A 17th century Venetian bronze breech-loading gun, which was seized by CBP officers in Boston as it was being smuggled into the United States. After an HSI Boston investigation, the cannon was successfully forfeited.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVqporEE3aXh1a6xylcbWYLAI6uf9jL81JayTjOSKET5ep1WO6gn2HSXRLtKsOv2T9Bp2YefN-Iuf0cqYUUS6c8_6vT0MTnATTtM_uu3Zw1SQnj2HCrTKyLYhEz1rgSini1rzORNPGY0pN/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-05-29+at+12.28.08.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="115" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVqporEE3aXh1a6xylcbWYLAI6uf9jL81JayTjOSKET5ep1WO6gn2HSXRLtKsOv2T9Bp2YefN-Iuf0cqYUUS6c8_6vT0MTnATTtM_uu3Zw1SQnj2HCrTKyLYhEz1rgSini1rzORNPGY0pN/s320/Screen+Shot+2015-05-29+at+12.28.08.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Reportedly, no criminal charges have been filed in relation to any of returned artworks since, in some cases, the statute of limitations on any crimes would have expired, and, in others, the paper trail for the piece's import into the US was too difficult to reconstruct. In addition, these pieces represent but a fraction of the art currently circulating on the black market. Nonetheless, as Phillips stated "every victory, every piece that is returned, every bit of cultural history that can be restored to its rightful home is a measure of progress."<br />
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Source: The New York Times, 26 May 2015Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-12916154832145039352015-05-19T23:32:00.002+01:002015-05-29T12:40:12.583+01:00Replica of Old Summer Palace opens despite potential IP infringement claim by Chinese authorities<style>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">A full-scale replica of Beijing’s
Old Summer Palace has opened to tourists at Hengdian World Studios, a giant
film studio located in Zhejiang Province also known as “</span></span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140207-is-chinawood-the-new-hollywood"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Chinawood</span></span></a></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">”, amidst threats of
legal action by the original Old Summer Palace's administrative office "if
the replica infringed intellectual property rights".</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Known
in Chinese as Yuánmíngyuán (the Gardens of Perfect Brightness), and originally
called the Imperial Gardens, the Old Summer Palace in Beijing was destroyed in
1860 during the Second Opium War on the orders of Lord Elgin (who,
incidentally, was the son of the Lord Elgin of </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://aandalawblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/greece-rules-out-legal-action-to.html"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Elgin Marbles fame</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">). </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">In
a written statement sent to </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-04/19/c_134163988.htm"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Xinhua News Agency</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">, the Old Summer Palace's
administrative office said the complex of pavilions and gardens where the Qing
Dynasty emperors resided (the Forbidden City was used for formal ceremonies) is
"unique and cannot by replicated. The construction and development of the
site should be planned by authoritative national organizations, and any
replication of it should reach certain standards."</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK7I2FgnZip-2WLKlgdogvzSnwQZGwJYc-Jzag2jA1peK06kAev0K4hi3V5ORBXJ29qYpKnCIfa9_pOEs6PQuQJwYlwa-bZeM2BNSA52b5-aya68T4P3_zpVMMB7SbOz_QaiKcgzH4vQA/s1600/Old+Summer+Palace+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK7I2FgnZip-2WLKlgdogvzSnwQZGwJYc-Jzag2jA1peK06kAev0K4hi3V5ORBXJ29qYpKnCIfa9_pOEs6PQuQJwYlwa-bZeM2BNSA52b5-aya68T4P3_zpVMMB7SbOz_QaiKcgzH4vQA/s400/Old+Summer+Palace+1.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An aerial view of the replica Old Summer Palace (Photo: AP)</td></tr>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">The
office offered no further explanation as to how its intellectual property
rights might be infringed. Xu Xinming, chief lawyer at the China Intellectual
Property Lawyers association, </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/05/12/world/asia/ap-as-china-fake-palace.html?_r=0"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">dismissed the threat</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">, commenting that China's
intellectual property law only covers 50 years from when a work has been
completed, but in any case "the original Old Summer Palace has been
destroyed and the replica has nothing to do with intellectual property rights."</span>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Whilst
the threat of legal action appears to hold little weight, the<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>incident has led to a wider debate
within China about the merits of the project, with </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-04/17/c_134160428.htm"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Xinhua</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> saying that many have
accused Hengdian World Studios, the world's largest outdoor film studio, of
"bastardizing a site associated with patriotism."</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4tjLMYZ0ewJsj32D2mJce-eDhA7YU8UZpP-95t5wnAHXLZ7oGcKSlFwhWtDftF-KxUZvbzpzHcTcjE9S8Loxlbig_ckC2uFHlSVy7W3F7E_yalQ6QjI_SCzhFRNBDeQyEUfZS5gkXovk/s1600/Old+summer+palace+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4tjLMYZ0ewJsj32D2mJce-eDhA7YU8UZpP-95t5wnAHXLZ7oGcKSlFwhWtDftF-KxUZvbzpzHcTcjE9S8Loxlbig_ckC2uFHlSVy7W3F7E_yalQ6QjI_SCzhFRNBDeQyEUfZS5gkXovk/s400/Old+summer+palace+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Visitors leave after a multimedia show at Hengdian's replica Old Summer Palace (Photo: AP)</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Hengdian’s
studio sets include replicas of the Forbidden City and the Tian'anmen Gate
Tower, and Chinese blockbusters such as Zhang Yimou’s 2002 movie “Hero” have
been filmed at Hengdian. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Xu Wenrong of the
Hengdian Group, the conglomerate behind the project, </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/05/12/world/asia/ap-as-china-fake-palace.html?_r=0"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">stated</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">: “</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">The Chinese government has never agreed to rebuild the site
because its destruction is a national shame. But generations of people have all
heard about the garden, they haven't been there and they expect it to be
rebuilt."</span>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">He
said it was natural to charge an entrance fee to an attraction, but asserted that
the replica had been built "for the benefit of the people and future
generations" rather than to make money. A press officer from Beijing's
cultural relics bureau </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/05/12/world/asia/ap-as-china-fake-palace.html?_r=0"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">responded</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> that the replica had
been built for the purposes of filmmaking and tourism. "It's fully
commercial and can hardly be regarded as a decent replica because it's not
situated within the Old Summer Palace." </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">The
destruction of the Old Summer Palace is still a very sensitive issue in China
today, and is </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://china.org.cn/china/2015-04/20/content_35363950.htm"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">frequently referenced</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> in patriotic education
campaigns. The </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/BeijingInformation/BeijingNewsUpdate/t1090717.htm"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Chinese government continues to put
a lot of effort</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> into locating and recovering the 1.5 million cultural
relics it estimates were </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30810596"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">looted from the palace</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> by British and French troops in
1860, and by an allied force including troops from the United States, Russia
and Britain in 1900.</span></div>
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Marianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12716169289017896435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-27391259564554518002015-05-18T18:17:00.000+01:002015-05-18T18:17:13.585+01:00Romero Britto sues Apple over copyright infringement <div style="text-align: justify;">
Apple was recently sued by the Pop artist Romero Britto over its "<a href="https://www.apple.com/start-something-new/" target="_blank">Start something new</a>" campaign for using an artwork from the design duo Craig & Karl, that allegedly copies the design style which Britto is famous for. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpvXY9sfMw7y2Be6OUgrXxJlVtC4DgJpkhTXGrdE8e5htwQrM1f3PPgMMYdm6IaxphBT8f2eSfdhZwAKaNL8znydTqxhoAvu_5t-F6FuCpQHbQvmJep7vbaK89jYX00BbqM2Y5FtlaRuCE/s1600/screen+shot+romero.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpvXY9sfMw7y2Be6OUgrXxJlVtC4DgJpkhTXGrdE8e5htwQrM1f3PPgMMYdm6IaxphBT8f2eSfdhZwAKaNL8znydTqxhoAvu_5t-F6FuCpQHbQvmJep7vbaK89jYX00BbqM2Y5FtlaRuCE/s400/screen+shot+romero.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A screenshot of Apple's website of the "Start something new" campaign</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Britto became aware of the copycat art when Apple launched its worldwide promotional campaign, but he discovered that the two artists had been systematically making art similar to his own for years.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjQ_g2r_WF_xEVO1u_fik6s3Vuo7fcpiJ0hyphenhyphenq8_S2cIgCcJqeMDPtg_WWs2TyQsuWGDz6PGwd0h-vf5YlyaNkGDkEkFc5FKveUl-uwAq4oa3zUYjzU8v6OLir4yxEPXOrrycwQd3UiTlE2/s1600/Britto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjQ_g2r_WF_xEVO1u_fik6s3Vuo7fcpiJ0hyphenhyphenq8_S2cIgCcJqeMDPtg_WWs2TyQsuWGDz6PGwd0h-vf5YlyaNkGDkEkFc5FKveUl-uwAq4oa3zUYjzU8v6OLir4yxEPXOrrycwQd3UiTlE2/s400/Britto.jpg" width="330" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Excerpt of the comparison offered in Britto's complaint</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
Britto is a Miami-based pop artist, internationally well-known, who works with several brands on advertising campaigns, using bright colours, strong lines and simple designs. According to his <a href="https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/261742894?access_key=key-fwv3N2s413q6ZKAkb39d&allow_share=true&escape=false&view_mode=scroll" target="_blank">complaint</a>, Britto's specific trade dress is "<i>strong, fanciful, non-functional, and inherently distinctive. In addition, the Britto Trade Dress has acquired distinctiveness as a result of uninterrupted promotion and sale of Britto brand products and services</i>". </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The lawsuit was recently filed in the US District Court, Southern District of Florida, against Apple and the graphic design duo for trade dress infringement, trade dress dilution, as well as unfair competition and copyright infringement. <br />
<br />
Britto accused the two artists of violating the Britto trade dress and Apple for commercially exploiting the allegedly infringing image. Indeed, Apple uses Craig & Karl's image – representing a patchwork hand on a bright yellow background on one of its iPads in the graphics – to promote its new advertising campaign, describing how this image was realized on iPad Air 2 using IOS apps.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Further to Apple's massive advertising campaign and to the use of Craig & Karl's image in retail stores, many people contacted Britto under the false impression that he had created the infringing artwork. Britto received many incorrect congratulations on his new deal with Apple, as well as messages of dismay from business partners, and inquiries from collectors wanting to know if the image displayed in the Apple stores or on the Apple website came from him.</div>
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Britto contacted Apple asking the company to cease using the infringing image, but he did not receive a response. Therefore, he decided to file a lawsuit, asking for an injunction preventing Apple from using the infringing artwork and Craig & Karl from producing or using other copycat artworks, along with damages and attorneys' fees. </div>
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Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00521285567302038210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-63132524300987062962015-05-18T15:00:00.000+01:002015-05-18T09:14:23.432+01:00The Reach of the Lens<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOYHrBrPi3CqHhiIvW6uiEeusaXYPKD66ffFr6sOAzDI4g2KUn0FzGpWcG5-y9dvHwqpVQ-VMHLhhEyvONcVPDq5GmfSkp8zIcNTatnS6RijxRnEuDWlEt5_FNf-fWxDk47WPtDyZC7Bw/s1600/The+Neighbors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOYHrBrPi3CqHhiIvW6uiEeusaXYPKD66ffFr6sOAzDI4g2KUn0FzGpWcG5-y9dvHwqpVQ-VMHLhhEyvONcVPDq5GmfSkp8zIcNTatnS6RijxRnEuDWlEt5_FNf-fWxDk47WPtDyZC7Bw/s320/The+Neighbors.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">One of The Neighbors</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Huge thanks to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pub/molly-torsen-stech/0/241/920">Molly Torsen Stech </a>for the following guest post on the Svenson saga. For those not aware of this US case it is what might have happened in Rear Window if Jimmy Stewart was an artist.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
Molly is a copyright and trade mark policy attorney based in New York City. She recently joined INTA as Editor-in-Chief and is involved in <i>pro bono</i> work for Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts of New York (VLANY). Before moving to New York, she was Counsel in the Office of Policy and International Affairs at the US Copyright Office, where her portfolio included Europe, Russia, Canada, relevant WIPO committees, and the OECD. <br />
<br />
On 9 April 2015, an appeals court in New York State decided a controversy that highlights one of the many discrete qualities of photography that challenges current law. Copyright law itself is not implicated; rather, the jurisprudence in question is based in privacy interests. Artist and photographer Arne Svenson was born in 1952 in Santa Monica, California, and has worked in New York City for <a href="http://petapixel.com/2015/03/16/interview-with-photographer-arne-svenson/">three decades</a>. His work is quite varied; the stylistic approach that best captures it is, to my eye, accurately reflected in his <a href="http://arnesvenson.com/bio.html">biography</a>: “First and foremost in Svenson's practice is to seek out the inner life, the essence, of his subjects, whether they be human, inanimate, or something in between.” If Mr. Svenson was <a href="http://petapixel.com/2015/03/16/interview-with-photographer-arne-svenson/">surprised</a> by the litigation, it could well be that the exhibition that prompted the lawsuit was not dramatically different from some of his <a href="http://arnesvenson.com/theworkers.html">prior work</a>.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the first half of 2012, Mr. Svenson began photographing people in the apartment building across from his own in Manhattan. The building’s façade is mostly glass, and Mr. Svenson photographed his subjects without their knowledge, although his lens could of course only capture what was viewable in front of various windows facing him. He selected some of these images to comprise an exhibition he called <a href="http://arnesvenson.com/theneighbors.html">The Neighbors</a>, which was exhibited in galleries in Los Angeles and New York. During the New York exhibition, various subjects of the photographs learned that their images were included in the show and demanded the withdrawal of those works. The artist and gallery agreed to remove some of them, including one where siblings were photographed together (which they presumably agreed to remove based on a potential viewer’s enhanced ability to recognize them together rather than separately). In <a href="http://petapixel.com/2015/03/16/interview-with-photographer-arne-svenson/">an interview</a> in March of this year, Mr. Svenson noted that he shot the photographs “for the tiny nuances of gesture and posture that define who we are, collectively. The subjects are to be seen as representations of humankind, non-identifiable as the actual people photographed.” His purported aim, then, was not to photograph these particular individuals; rather to photograph vignettes of people, generally, in their homes. </span><br />
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In May 2013, some of the photographs that Mr. Svenson had not removed from the exhibition were shown on television broadcasts, which prompted the lawsuit; plaintiff tenants (and subjects of Mr. Svenson’s photographs) sought damages pursuant to the statutory tort of invasion of privacy, and the common law tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress. The trial court granted the defendant’s cross-motion to dismiss the complaint in August 2013, but the appellate court then granted a preliminary appellate injunction. The New York privacy statute, however, <a href="http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/nycode/CVR/5/50">focuses on</a> restricting activities that have “advertising purposes;” and activities “for the purposes of trade.” The appellate court noted that the legislature’s use of the “broad, unqualified terms for advertising and trade purposes, on their face, appear to support plaintiffs’ contention” that the statutory terms should apply across the board to items bought and sold, including artistic photographs. But it <a href="http://www.courts.state.ny.us/reporter/3dseries/2015/2015_03068.htm">found</a> that courts “have refused to adopt a literal construction of these terms because the advertising and trade limitations of the privacy statute were drafted with the First Amendment in mind.” It ultimately granted Mr. Svenson’s cross motion to dismiss the complaint.
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Cem09tfvUP6eZbBYPdlkyQz7_XB-mKdJ9FLi0mdAjHVjgFKj2QjelAi-0BKefHCz3hn-ySK9mcFqOH_6RL_Q6N_Fui2A87AGzkjP3ov3kclZ9x_tS6aQj-GQue2rCrhSpTZuP2b9zXg/s1600/Neighbours.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Cem09tfvUP6eZbBYPdlkyQz7_XB-mKdJ9FLi0mdAjHVjgFKj2QjelAi-0BKefHCz3hn-ySK9mcFqOH_6RL_Q6N_Fui2A87AGzkjP3ov3kclZ9x_tS6aQj-GQue2rCrhSpTZuP2b9zXg/s1600/Neighbours.jpeg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Not to be confused with these </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Neighbours</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are several questions raised by this case which were not presented to the court. For example, many art critics <a href="http://www.artcritical.com/2013/07/09/arne-svenson/">note</a> the “painterly” quality of Mr. Svenson’s photographs, <a href="https://artforum.com/inprint/issue=201307&id=42708&section=new-york">likening</a> some of his work to the paintings of John Singer Sargent. Extrapolating from this characterization, would paintings based on his photograph also engender claims of invasion of privacy? In January of this year, a civil court in Antwerp surprisingly (at least to this lawyer) <a href="http://www.mondaq.com/x/380818/Copyright/Antwerp+Court+Issues+Cease+And+Desist+Order+Against+Luc+Tuymans">found</a> that a Luc Tuymans painting based on a photograph of a politician infringed the copyright in that photograph. In different jurisdictions, could Mr. Svenson make paintings of his photographs to avoid the privacy claim? In other words, is it the nature of photography itself that is the offender here? Or is it the resultant recognizable likeness of the individual, whether on Panalure paper or canvas? Obviously, New York and Antwerp operate under different laws, but the question of what the offense is – the likeness or the medium – is interesting. Recalling the 2004 UK case <i><a href="http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/2004/22.html">Campbell v Mirror Group Newspapers Ltd</a></i>, I wonder whether Mr. Svenson’s photographs would receive more hostile treatment on the other side of the Atlantic (acknowledging, however, that Ms. Campbell is a celebrity, which certainly distinguishes the cases.) </span><br />
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Another open question is the relative importance of artistic intent or meaning. In the recent Second Circuit <a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/tfisher/IP/2013_Cariou.pdf">Cariou v. Prince</a> copyright fair use decision, the court emphasized that an artist’s commentary on his own art is not necessarily the key to answering the fair use factors under copyright law, but it spent quite a bit of time remarking on the different genres of audiences that the artists in question tended to attract, and did not provide clear guidance on who the appropriate “observer” is in qualifying the four factors of the fair use doctrine. (“Prince’s work appeals to an entirely different sort of collector than Cariou’s. Certain of the Canal Zone artworks have sold for two million or more dollars. The invitation list for a dinner that Gagosian hosted in conjunction with the opening of the Canal Zone show included a number of the wealthy and famous. . .”) In the Svenson case, the appellate court acknowledges Mr. Svenson’s status as a “renowned fine arts photographer” as a factor that favors protecting his work under the First Amendment, but the court leaves the analysis there, declining to go on to focus on the audiences that his work might reach. Copyright case law and privacy case law may simply part ways on that scale. </span><br />
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As a last point: none of these struggles of balance between art and privacy are new. The Svenson appellate court, at the opening of its decision, references the renowned 1890 Harvard Law Review article by Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandies, <a href="http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/privacy/Privacy_brand_warr2.html">The Right to Privacy</a>. Although it does not specifically cite this passage, I find it relevant, and as appropriate in 2015 as it was in 1890: </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you may not reproduce a woman's face photographically without her consent, how much less should be tolerated the reproduction of her face, her form, and her actions, by graphic descriptions colored to suit a gross and depraved imagination ... [However], it is only the more flagrant breaches of decency and propriety that could in practice be reached [by a right to privacy], and it is not perhaps desirable even to attempt to repress everything which the nicest taste and keenest sense of the respect due to private life would condemn.</span></blockquote>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-51570218107888925262015-05-16T22:04:00.003+01:002015-05-17T19:02:47.236+01:00Greece rules out legal action to recover Elgin Marbles<style>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As
reported by </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://aandalawblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/elgin-marbles-no-litigation-after-all.html"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Jeremy</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">,
the Greek government publicly stated this week that it would not be pursuing
restitution of the Elgin Marbles through international courts, despite being
advised by their high-profile British legal team that it is a “now or never”
opportunity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
Greek culture minister </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Nikos Xydakis </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32735410"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">told
Greece’s Mega TV</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">: "One cannot go
to court over whatever issue. Besides, in international courts the outcome is
uncertain", adding </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“the road to
reclaiming the return of the sculptures is diplomatic and political.” T</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">he
Greek government would instead switch to “low-key, persistent work” to effect
the Marbles’ return to Athens.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
comments came 48 hours after a 148-page report prepared by Geoffrey Robertson
QC, Norman Palmer QC and Amal Clooney was presented to the Greek government,
urging it to consider legal action against the British Museum through the
International Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights in
Strasbourg. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Elgin Marbles east
pediment</span></i></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"> (Image: <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elgin_Marbles_British_Museum.jpg">Andrew
Dunn/Wikimedia</a>) </span></span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Background to the
report</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
Greek government has made longstanding appeals for the return of the
controversial Elgin Marbles, the sculptures removed by Lord Elgin from the
Parthenon in the early 1800s that, following their purchase by the British
Government in 1816, became part of the British Museum’s collection. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
dossier, commissioned following a high-profile visit to Athens by the team of
lawyers last October, is reported by the </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/elgin-marbles-greece-should-take-uk-to-court-over-sculptures-claim-human-rights-lawyers-10245657.html"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Independent</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
to make a compelling case for the Greek government to pursue legal action and
sets out which steps needed to be taken. “The British adhere to international
law…The Greek government has never taken advantage of this Achilles’ heel,” the
report is quoted as saying. “You must take legal action now or you may lose the
opportunity to do so due to future legal obstacles.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
report proposes first making a formal request for the Marbles’ return, then
lodging a claim at the International Court of Justice. If the Court were to
refuse jurisdiction, an approach should be made to the European Court of Human
Rights (ECtHR). A “75-80 per cent chance” of success is estimated if an
international court accepts jurisdiction, and the report cites a 1962
International Court of Justice ruling which forced Thailand to return
sculptures removed from the Preah Vihear temple in Cambodia. The advice also
suggests the case would also be looked upon favourably under the European
Convention on Human Rights. </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">One
possible future obstacle is the new </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2015/03/10/helen-fenwick-the-conservative-stance-in-the-2015-election-on-the-uks-relationship-with-the-strasbourg-court-part-i/"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Conservative
government’s election pledge</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and to consider making Strasbourg judgments
non-binding on UK courts. The new Culture Secretary, John Whittingdale, has
also </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/george-clooney-believes-britain-should-lose-its-marbles-9117067.html"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">previously
made clear</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> that he supports the
British Museum in the dispute.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Reaction</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Despite
such obstacles, the Greek government’s comments have been somewhat unexpected.
Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, led far-left Syriza to power in
January on the back of nationalist sentiment and </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/alexis-tsipras-debt-relief-elgin-marbles-2/2861"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">declared</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
his intention to secure the return of the Elgin Marbles. In March Mr Xydakis
responded to the </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://aandalawblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/elgin-marbles-british-museum-rejects.html"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">British
Museum’s refusal to consider mediation</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
by condemning British “negativism” and “lack of respect for the role of
mediators”. Furthermore, a considerable amount of goodwill has been generated
by recent efforts </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(not least Amal
Clooney’s highly-publicised involvement in the matter), with </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/10/18/british-people-tend-want-elgin-marbles-returned/"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">public
opinion in the UK</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> also supporting the
return of the Elgin Marbles to Athens.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
has been speculated that the Greek volte-face is the result of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">pressure from the EU and IMF over Greece’s </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11584410/Bankrupt-Greeks-blame-Troika-divisions-for-debt-impasse.html"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">massive
debts</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> and the looming possibility of an
</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32332221"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">exit from the
eurozone.</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> However, the
report was </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/03/03/greek-shipping-tycoon-offers-to-pay-amal-clooney-fee-for-parthenon-marbles-return/"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">funded
by a third party</span></a></span><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">,</span></u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> and there have been several offers to assist in </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/02/13/greece-to-follow-different-strategy-on-parthenon-marbles-repatriation/"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">funding
any legal action</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">t remains to be seen whether the Greek government will
follow any of the report’s recommendations. For now this development counts as
a </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/11604991/Greece-knows-there-is-no-legal-right-to-the-Elgin-Marbles-thats-why-it-wont-sue-the-UK.html"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">major
victory</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> for supporters
of </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the British Museum, but it is evident that
the dispute is nowhere near its conclusion.</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span>
Marianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12716169289017896435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-33722214771428193832015-05-15T19:39:00.000+01:002015-05-17T19:01:58.544+01:00Hot off the Presses! On Art Attacks: At the Confluence of Shock, Appropriation, and the LawAs some of our readers may recall, after a museum patron wrote on a Mark Rothko painting at the Tate Modern, I published an <a href="http://aandalawblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/art-attacks.html" target="_blank">entry on A&A</a> about the incident, idly musing on the broader intellectual property implications of such acts. I presented more in depth research on this very challenging form of appropriation art at the John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law symposium last fall and the <a href="http://repository.jmls.edu/ripl/" target="_blank">journal's symposium issue</a>, which is devoted entirely to art law topics has just become available online. My <a href="http://repository.jmls.edu/ripl/vol14/iss3/5/" target="_blank">article</a> explores broader legal issues associated with making artwork on top of other original works of art, including legal and ethical issues such as copyright, moral rights, freedom of expression, and preservation of cultural heritage. With an entire journal issue devoted to art law topics, I hope our readers will find some enjoyable weekend reading.<br />
<br />
<b>Abstract</b><br />
<br />
Does the law adequately recognize the expansive nature of art, especially in scenarios involving controversial acts of appropriation art? Of particular curiosity is just how the law should treat acts of artistic appropriation involving the creation of artwork on top of other original works of art, or art attacks. This is an issue that has been largely unaddressed by the courts outside the realm of criminal proceedings. However, the legal implications of such acts reach far beyond crimes and property torts, involving copyright, moral rights, freedom of expression, and the preservation of cultural heritage. Indeed, the issues are not just far reaching, but complex as well. Art attacks yield double-hinged questions as to intellectual property rights and moral rights. Whether art attacks are protected by the First Amendment largely splits along the lines of property ownership, while international treaties concerning the preservation of cultural heritage weigh heavily and numerously against the lawfulness, or acceptability, of any art attacks. In 1903 the Supreme Court admonished that those trained only in the law should not “constitute themselves final judges” of the worth of artistic creations—with this in mind, it is crucial to consider all the legal dimensions presented by these challenging acts of appropriation art.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-25893921288651307152015-05-14T19:25:00.003+01:002015-05-14T19:31:34.793+01:00Elgin Marbles: no litigation after all, but diplomacy to continue<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPlToM1ai5ZA-jx7iAfWXrFq0qVJgi8VKx_cK86_RO_WZYqV_Cy6HkRxTvDywXJi7JYDrb2M-gAWsWRVotQXGmZLFhNyLJ2jSKtjn_kr3UqAl9d55IfSKSWmH2g-Jxkkwl5rN81BpEIQ/s1600/elgin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPlToM1ai5ZA-jx7iAfWXrFq0qVJgi8VKx_cK86_RO_WZYqV_Cy6HkRxTvDywXJi7JYDrb2M-gAWsWRVotQXGmZLFhNyLJ2jSKtjn_kr3UqAl9d55IfSKSWmH2g-Jxkkwl5rN81BpEIQ/s400/elgin.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">"Shall we go back to Athens, then? <br />It's positively 'friezing' here in London ..."</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
"Elgin Marbles legal action ruled out by Greece" is the news from the BBC website today. The article, by an unnamed author, can be read <b><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-32735410">here</a></b>. It states, in relevant part: <br />
<blockquote>
Greece has ruled out taking legal action against the UK to reclaim the<b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin_Marbles"> Elgin Marbles </a></b>from the British Museum.
In an unexpected move, Greece's culture minister said the country would pursue a "diplomatic and political" approach to retrieving the sculptures instead.
<br />
<br />
In doing so, the country has rejected the advice of barrister <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amal_Clooney">Amal Clooney</a></b>, who had urged Greece to take Britain to the International Court of Justice.
<br />
<br />
Lord Elgin acquired the Marbles from the Ottoman Empire 200 years ago.
<br />
<br />
Greece insists the Parthenon Sculptures - as they are properly known - were taken illegally and has pursued a high-profile campaign in recent years for their return, latterly with the help of Mrs Clooney. Mrs Clooney reportedly submitted a 150-page report to the Greek government this week urging it to formally request the repatriation of the marbles and take Britain to the International Court of Justice if it refused. But Greece's culture minister Nikos Xydakis told the country's Mega TV: </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"One cannot go to court over whatever issue. Besides, in international courts the outcome is uncertain".</blockquote>
He said he believed attitudes to the future of the Marbles were slowly changing and would favour Greece in a diplomatic approach. ...</blockquote>
An earlier initiative to have the dispute mediated by UNESCO was rejected by the British (on which see Marian's post <b><a href="http://aandalawblog.blogspot.co.il/2015/03/elgin-marbles-british-museum-rejects.html">here</a></b>). This blogger was sad about this, since mediation never hurts: a mediator cannot impose an outcome on an unwilling party and the process itself often enables both sides to be more sensitive to the interests and the anxieties of the other.<br />
<br />
This blogger is however curious to know the precise legal basis upon which a legal claim for repatriation of the Elgin Marbles would be made, and whether the same argument would effectively provide a basis for repatriating quantities of other museum holdings. Can any reader advise?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-4269754830411393922015-04-27T16:35:00.000+01:002015-05-17T19:03:14.945+01:00Virtual restoration of Mosul Museum to help track looted items<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">An
</span></span><a href="http://cordis.europa.eu/news/rcn/122604_en.html"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: blue;">EU-led initiative</span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> plans to virtually restore the
artefacts damaged by ISIS at Iraq’s Mosul Museum. Using crowd-sourced images to
recreate lost and destroyed items, researchers hope that these 3D ‘virtual
museums’ will aid efforts to identify and track down looted items.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://projectmosul.org/">Project Mosul</a> is a collaborative effort
between researchers from the ITN-DCH (<a href="http://www.itn-dch.eu/index.php/about-us/">Initial Training Network for Digital Cultural Heritage: Projecting our Past to the Future</a>), <a href="http://www.europeana-space.eu/">EUROPEANA SPACE</a> and
<a href="http://www.4d-ch-world.eu/">4D-CH-WORLD</a> projects. The project was launched two weeks after a video was
released on Youtube showing the sacking of Iraq’s 300-year old Mosul Museum by
Islamic State. Extremists filmed themselves using sledgehammers to destroy a
series of ancient sculptures - some almost 3,000 years old and dating from the
Assyrian Empire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuXqwMPc6fHIQx_2MwhNCFei17BDad-SM1vCEyqPlaBj57F6Lhc9pjzMwVW59ktlUB9N4yeufdcucL4jo4-hn45EYKw2x4EcdrkdR4Nrx0yNUUEeVH7RCYvVxf3T6XdDdgmFpceBM0HzI/s1600/Mosul.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuXqwMPc6fHIQx_2MwhNCFei17BDad-SM1vCEyqPlaBj57F6Lhc9pjzMwVW59ktlUB9N4yeufdcucL4jo4-hn45EYKw2x4EcdrkdR4Nrx0yNUUEeVH7RCYvVxf3T6XdDdgmFpceBM0HzI/s1600/Mosul.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Screen shot of the video released by Islamic State (Image: YouTube)<o:p></o:p></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The project website reads: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We assume that much of the museum's contents
were looted, and anything small enough to be easily removed will be appearing
soon on the antiquities market. Anything too large to remove for sale, appears
to have met a violent end at the hand of ISIS extremists. In both cases, it is
possible to virtually recreate the lost items through the application of
photogrammetry and crowdsourcing. Given enough photographs, digital or scans of
analogues, it is possible to reconstruct the artefacts and create digital
surrogates of those artefacts. This provides two immediate benefits: helping to
identify looted items and recreating destroyed items</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Importantly, the project team also points out
the importance of keeping the memory of these objects and their meaning alive,
rather than seeing virtual reconstruction as an end in itself. For communities
faced with loss of their cultural heritage, this project will provide a tool to
preserve, disseminate and re-engage with their history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">However, the Mosul Museum has been closed
since the outbreak of the Iraq war in 2003, meaning that relevant images can prove
very difficult to locate. Pictures of the destroyed museum objects, including
Assyrian and Hatrene artefacts, will be retrieved from Open Access repositories
of FLICKR and PICASA, the EU digital library Europeana and anyone else willing
to contribute images of their own. These 3D reconstructions will then be
presented in an online museum where the data will be freely accessible to the
public. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpW_nilGOUTYKrJP_qbAPOF7Via5rbb9M2_bdqqtyK4QMPpb-Z-PeYxA9b8iR0FoIZ0Gmx-53dZwgVgKxTXKSMScM3tg0XQnI2SlxRAd72h6NZuVhDts8WcMwXl11U7PmLhu9xogXXkYQ/s1600/Mosul+lion.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpW_nilGOUTYKrJP_qbAPOF7Via5rbb9M2_bdqqtyK4QMPpb-Z-PeYxA9b8iR0FoIZ0Gmx-53dZwgVgKxTXKSMScM3tg0XQnI2SlxRAd72h6NZuVhDts8WcMwXl11U7PmLhu9xogXXkYQ/s1600/Mosul+lion.png" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Reconstruction of lion statue destroyed by the Islamic State </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">(Image:</span><a href="https://sketchfab.com/ingg?utm_source=oembed&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=baea7dabc9004dfd8f1bf424cb7d40b4"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"> ingg</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">/Sketchfab)</span></td></tr>
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The team is calling on volunteers to help
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the museum artefacts. </div>
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To get involved, visit the Project Mosul website: </div>
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<a href="http://projectmosul.org/"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: blue;">http://projectmosul.org/</span></span></a></div>
Marianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12716169289017896435noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2941976044448685733.post-90593994899073937952015-04-21T23:14:00.002+01:002015-05-17T23:01:53.424+01:00The dirty side of artistic copyright: septic tank technical drawings are artistic works says the UK privy council<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8DQLG3IOp8BsRlbNiO1v6iSl1rdciFK0GDZ75oTSDkVgpFi_4PW40K8eVjOgdY8sJ1ApmMAulMzQF0NppRCtVaP1l2n4q35Hbxi9p-CJ1jpUgFt02AOTkVTx5wL15fZwOBlijUFI-pVw/s1600/DSC_8281.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8DQLG3IOp8BsRlbNiO1v6iSl1rdciFK0GDZ75oTSDkVgpFi_4PW40K8eVjOgdY8sJ1ApmMAulMzQF0NppRCtVaP1l2n4q35Hbxi9p-CJ1jpUgFt02AOTkVTx5wL15fZwOBlijUFI-pVw/s1600/DSC_8281.jpg" width="214" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It's all hands to the pump if the septic tank stops working...</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Judges are not art critics. For that reason, the definition of an 'artistic' work has traditionally been given a fairly generous interpretation by the courts, the view being that it should not be for a judge to decide what is and is not 'art'. That said, not everyone would suspect that even the drawings for something as prosaic as a septic tank could become a battleground for testing the limits of artistic copyright.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For various historical reasons the final court of appeal for the Bahamas (and much of the Caribbean) is still the UK's privy council. This means that various UK judges occasionally provide the final word on cases which involve different laws and parties located thousands of miles away.
<a href="http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKPC/2015/17.html">Gold Rock Corp Ltd v Hylton</a> is such a case.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first instance judge made a pretty unequivocal finding of copying but Hylton had successfully argued (at his first appeal) that he could not have infringed copyright as technical drawings of septic tanks were not artistic works within the meaning of the <a href="http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id=215023">Bahamian Copyright Act</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The relevant sections of the act are set out below.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Section 2(1) defines "artistic works" as follows:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>'artistic works' include </b>two-dimensional and three-dimensional work of fine, graphic and applied art, photographs, prints and art reproductions, maps, globes, charts, diagrams, models, architectural plans and <b>technical drawings</b>.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Section 2(1) contains a further definition:
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>'useful article' </b>means an article having an intrinsic utilitarian function that is not merely to portray the appearance of the article or convey information and an article that is [not] normally a part of a useful article is considered a 'useful article'</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Section 2(1) also says"the terms 'including' and 'such as' are illustrative and not limiting."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally section 2(3) states that:
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The term 'artistic works' as defined in subsection (1) shall include works of artistic craftsmanship in so far as their form but not their mechanical or utilitarian aspects are concerned; and the design of a <b>useful article</b>, as defined in this section, shall be considered an artistic work only if, and only to the extent that, such design incorporates artistic features that can be identified separately from and are capable of existing independently of, the utilitarian aspects of the article.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A lot of time appears to have been spent debating whether or not technical drawings for a septic tank were a 'useful article' within the meaning of section 2(3). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The privy council noted that a technical drawing is not a useful article in itself (although septic tanks are undeniably useful items!) and thus would not fall within section 2(3). Their view was that:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">section 2(3) concerned three dimensional objects like works of artistic craftsmanship and non-utilitarian design; and </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the section actually widened the definition of artistic works by including things like works of artistic craftsmanship which were not explicitly set out in the definition of artistic works at section 2(1). </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As septic tank drawings fit squarely within the definition of 'technical drawings', and no other exceptions applied, they were protected by Bahamian copyright law. The finding of infringement then easily followed (amongst other things the Hylton copy had reproduced spelling mistakes in the original drawings). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whilst the decision may not have a direct bearing on other jurisdictions, the board did take into account various US authorities for the proposition that even if a septic tanks' technical plans do not offer the author protection to stop reproduction of the septic tank itself, they do offer protection against copying of the plans themselves. The rationale for looking at US case law was that both US and Bahamian law are derived from the Berne Convention and implement it in a similar way. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is also worth bearing in mind that there is considerable overlap between the members of the privy council and the UK's Supreme Court and Court of Appeal. So whilst the Bahamian Copyright Act is different to the UK's Copyright Designs and Patents Act it offers an insight into the court's possible interpretation of technical drawings in the the future. </span><br />
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