Copyright infringement question, photography of public art Near Las Vegas is an outdoor earth art piece called Seven Magic Mountains. I have taken many photos there, the one above I took, well its a frame from a movie from my drone. I am out a few weeks ago and I notice a small sign, that says photography is fine for personal use, commercial use requires written permission from...Well I will quote from the website "Photography by visitors is permitted only for private noncommercial use. Professional photography equipment (e.g., tripods, lighting umbrellas, etc.) may not be used or brought onto the premises. Photographs taken on site may not be sold, licensed, distributed, or commercially exploited in any manner whatsoever." So I am not a commercial photographer, how ever this policy bothered me on a number of levels. My first thought is that just because you say so, it does not mean it is so. Or in other words I think the policy is a bit of a bluff. I think I still own the photo below and any value I might gain from it would be the product of my work as the copyright owner. So I am wondering, if someone offered me money for this picture I would then be in violation of their terms, are these terms actually binding on someone? And does someone down the line IE the artist, the company that organized/provided the funding, the US Gov(its on public land) have some claim on royalties if these pictures actually had some commercial value, like say ad revenue from a YouTube video? I have now posted the picture on SE, a commercial venture, I also have a video on YouTube, another commercial entity, anybody have a legitimate monetary claim? Take that last question as rhetorical, I am really asking if "they" would ever have any kind of actionable copyright infringement claim on any work just because their art is in a picture? Just to be clear: According to the website, the art is "public art". The location of the art is on public land.* The website for the art is registered to a non-profit whom I speculate has licensing control of the art, don't know for sure, don't know if that matters. they use the term "premises", there is no real premises defined. The public land around the art goes for many miles in every direction, although a wildlife fence runs along the highway a few hundred feet from it, no fence encircles it, if they have authority were would their domain end? I would like to thank Dale M for his answer, I put some questions in the comments section of his answer, I was really talking to myself Dale, not really questions I expect you should or could answer. I have for the last few hours been looking around the net, and I was able to find the particulars of the land use that the Seven Magic Mountains are granted. They have a right of way (ROW) from BLM. This is the same ROW that the BLM grants anybody that wants to put something on BLM land like power lines, roads etc. They are renters and have no particular rights beyond permission to put the sculpture on BLM land at this location for a couple of years (and watch out for desert turtles). Their thing about commercial photography may be a bit overstated, especially the comment that Professional photography equipment (e.g., tripods, lighting umbrellas, etc.) may not be used or brought onto the premises. And Photographs taken on site may not be sold, licensed, distributed, or commercially exploited in any manner whatsoever." According to the BLM, on BLM land one can essentially photograph rather you are a professional or amateur and there is no particular language that even implies what gear is or isn't allowed. However a permit is required for certain filming and photography, such as filming movies, commercial products and photographing in non public areas or if sets and props are involved. https://www.blm.gov/programs/lands-and-realty/leases-and-permits/filming-on-public-lands/film-permits clarifying memo from 2013: https://www.blm.gov/policy/im-2013-126 It seems the BLM is interested that you do not leave a mess, trespass etc., they don't seem to have any interest in fair use and copyright or have any vested interest in protecting users of all and any types from possible infringement, guess BLM just don't think it's BLM's business. A search on the keyword "Drones" netted no results that indicated BLM had any policy that limited use of drones beyond FAA regulation. I left one key thing out, an over site. The signs posted on site said you needed permission from Seven Magic Mountains to film or photograph for commercial use. So let me rephrase the question a bit: Does having a public work of art on a ROW, on BLM public land, public land with anytime public access, give one extra weight with fair use rights or to deny or allow permission to BLM allowed public uses, because one has posted a fart in the wind contention on a sign? Or a shorter version, is that website language and sign a bluff?
Your photos of their copyrighted sculpture would constitute "derivative works" or "copies" of their sculpture in a different form, thus infringing the copyright, absent a statutory exemption or a license. They have granted a license for certain limited uses. You would have the burden of proving a statutory exemption, such as "fair use", or compliance with their license, were you to be charged with infringement. Commercial sales of photos of someone else's art, displayed in public, are not "fair use". Similar issues are raised in https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/4140/what-are-the-copyright-issues-when-selling-photos-of-public-art
There are various tangential ways in which this could be illegal, for example if your subjects are celebrities, you take a picture of them and commercially exploit it without permission in a product endorsement. Leaving aside such fringe cases, in the US, the legal right to privacy comes about, at the first cut, by premise trespass law. If the proprietor tells you to go away, you have to go away; if the proprietor tells you that you cannot take pictures, you cannot take pictures (your right to enter is conditional). Neither of those circumstances holds in your case. There are other tort-law bases for a right to privacy: numerous privacy laws regarding privacy and financial transactions (not relevant here), the aforementioned right of publicity (commercial exploitation of likeness), false light (like defamation, about creating a false impression – I don't see what false information is conveyed by a photo). There is also public disclosure of private fact, but that cat is out of the bag because the subject has self-disclosed the supposedly offensive fact revealed by the picture by eating in public. Intrusion of solitude and seclusion does not exist in the circumstance, since the subject is eating in public where everybody can see: there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. This page sums us Virginia law. The main take-away from that is that there is no common law action for privacy in Virginia, and only an action for unauthorized used of likeness or name.
The first question is whose law you are concerned with, since in principle you might have violated copyright law in any country, and might be sued under the laws of multiple countries. The US has a concept of "fair use" which is notoriously difficult to apply. When you are sued in the US, you can defend against the allegation by arguing certain things: telegraphically, this includes purpose and character of use, nature of the work, substantiality in relation to the whole, and effect on market. Plus there is a 5th factor to be considered, transformativeness. The court then weighs these factors to decide if the use is "fair". By reading existing case law on the topic (conveniently available from the US Copyright office) you might develop a fact-based opinion of the risk: you would be vastly better off hiring an attorney who specializes in US copyright law to do an analysis for you. Do not hire a programmer to give you legal advice (do not hire an attorney to debug code). You would "fail" on the test of substantiality in that you are copying a highly substantial portion of the original work(s). You would "win" on nature of use (research especially non-profit and commentary are the underlying purposes that drive fair use law). It's not clear how you would fare w.r.t. nature of the work, which is intended to distinguish the extremes "news report" and "literature and artistic work" where copying news is at the fair use end of the spectrum. It is not clear how you would fare on "effect on market", but probably not so badly: are you avoiding some licensing fee? Coupled with the tranformativeness consideration, you are most likely having no effect on the market, since the product that you will distribute is not the original work, but a scientific conclusion about the work. Germany has different laws, and this article would be relevant if you cared about Germany. There was a change in the law that expanded the analog of fair use pertaining to research use. That law allows 15 percent of a work to be reproduced, distributed and made available to the public for the purpose of non-commercial scientific research. That, b.t.w., does not refer to what you are planning to do (unless you also publish quotes); for personal scientific research you may reproduce up to 75 percent. Since this is a new law only a year old, you could become part of the cutting edge in testing the limits of the law. So the standard disclaimer applies: ask your attorney. But note section 60d of the law which legalized data mining, and is squarely on point: (1) In order to enable the automatic analysis of large numbers of works (source material) for scientific research, it shall be permissible to reproduce the source material, including automatically and systematically, in order to create, particularly by means of normalisation, structuring and categorisation, a corpus which can be analysed and to make the corpus available to the public for a specifically limited circle of persons for their joint scientific research, as well as to individual third persons for the purpose of monitoring the quality of scientific research. In such cases, the user may only pursue non-commercial purposes. (2) If database works are used pursuant to subsection (1), this shall constitute customary use in accordance with section 55a, first sentence. If insubstantial parts of databases are used pursuant to subsection (1), this shall be deemed consistent with the normal utilisation of the database and with the legitimate interests of the producer of the database within the meaning of section 87b (1), second sentence, and section 87e. (3) Once the research work has been completed, the corpus and the reproductions of the source material shall be deleted; they may no longer be made available to the public. It shall, however, be permissible to transmit the corpus and the reproductions of the source material to the institutions referred to in sections 60e and 60f for the purpose of long-term storage.
Yes, you may The layout of the board and its appearance are not protected by copyright, because they are not expressions or any other type of copyrightable content. Even if they were (say if some protested art was displayed on the board) you are displaying this for instructional purposes, and not harming any market for the board, so fair use is likely to apply (in the U.S.). The device could be protected by patent, but you are not copying or imitating the board, nor showing anyone how to do so, so that would not apply. You are not selling or advertising the board, nor knock-offs of it, so trademark protection would not apply, even if a protected trademark is visible on th board. Just in case, be sure to make clear that your video is not authorized or endorsed by the maker of the board.
Let's deal with the somewhat misguided notion of "public space": what it means and what it doesn't: "publicly owned" is not equivalent to "public space" - Camp David is "publicly owned"; it is not "public space". "privately owned" can be "public space" - the publically accessible parts of shopping malls are privately owned public spaces. "public space" does not mean you have unconditional access. Access may be limited or subject to restrictions placed on it by whoever has lawful authority over it. For example, the aforementioned shopping mall is not public when the mall is closed, roads may be closed for maintenance, street festivities or emergencies etc. So: if you are in a place where you have permission of the lawful authority to be (public spaces give you this implicitly, private spaces require explicit permission), and the lawful authority has not placed restrictions on photography, and the subject does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy (like they would in a public toilet), and the subject matter is legal (e.g. considering restrictions on sexual or commercial activities), then you can take photographs.
Let me give some nuance, if not a definitive answer, since I'm not a lawyer. First, ArXiv holds only a license, not the underlying copyright. You need to contact the copyright holder to get permission (and a license). That may be the authors themselves, or a journal if they have assigned the copyright to it. However, it might be more complicated, especially for commercial use. Since the authors of papers frequently use images created by others, sometimes correctly and sometimes not, you should explore a bit more. Perhaps the paper itself will have a citation of the figure and an indication of its source, and hence of its copyright holder. In that case, the authors may not be able to help you, since, at best, they probably also hold just a license. However, for some academic purposes and in some jurisdictions an academic work can be permitted to use a figure (or other things) without regard to copyright. This is called fair use and it varies around the world. But a commercial work won't be able (probably) to depend on the same exception to copyright law and you still have to find the copyright holder. Moreover, even if the authors have a proper license (explicitly), that license (a) may not be transferrable and (b) might be for non-commercial use only. Academic copyright holders often (not universally) issue their work under a fairly permissive license but that is restricted to non-commercial use. Since they hold the copyright they can also issue additional licenses against it if they like, but need to do so explicitly. Ultimately, to use the work of others you have to deal with the copyright question. It is further complicated by the fact that a figure may be considered under the law as a "complete work" even if it appears within another work. So, replicating it is less likely to fall under fair use rules - though they vary. And, there is one other question you should ask yourself. Is your talk really a commercial use? If you are an academic, it may be a subtle question, or not.
First off, the work is almost certainly not in the public domain in the US. Works are generally copyrighted upon creation or publication, but in this case the work was probably explicitly copyrighted. The fact that a work is out of print generally has no bearing on its copyright status. US copyright law changed several times in the last century. The 1985 copyright year means the board game was probably published then, and it's since it's a Disney copyright it's a corporate work, which would give it a copyright term of 95 years, meaning that it should be covered under copyright until 2080. See this factsheet on copyright from the US Copyright office. Works Created on or after January 1, 1978 For works made for hire and anonymous and pseudonymous works, the duration of copyright is 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter International laws will vary, but many countries adhere to the Berne Convention, which means that international laws will probably be at least similar. Either way, the work isn't very old from an intellectual property perspective. Fair use is an exception to copyright law that allows portions of copyrighted works to be used without permission or compensation in certain circumstances; academic or scholarly use is one of them. Generally, your use of the work has to be the minimum necessary amount to serve your purposes, and cannot harm the commercial value of the work. (The fact that the work is out of print may help with the latter.) The problem with fair use is that it's always determined on a case by case basis. The only way to know for sure if a particular use is fair use is to wait for the copyright holder to sue you and then make a fair use defense in court. I was going to suggest that you discuss this with the editor of your journal, but re-reading your question it looks like you're planning to publish to a personal blog rather than an academic journal. In the end, it's up to you (or your attorney, if you choose to hire one) to analyze the relevant legal concepts and rules and decide if and how much of the work to use.
You can take pictures of any buildings if you are in a public place, and can freely use such photographs without consent of a owner or designer of that building. [Japan Copyright Act, art. 46] BTW, external appearance of buildings in U.S. Armed Forces facilities are NOT confidential under US-Japan Security Treaty and related statutes enacted in Japan.