Re: droit de suite

On 2000-04-05, Tyler Ochoa <tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu> wrote:
>
> [...]
> the owner of a painting DOES currently have the legal right to
> "forbid others to see it, [and] forbid photos being taken or
> reproduced."
>
> What happens if the copyright holder needs access to the original
> in order to be able to reproduce it? There's no statute that says
> the owner of the painting has to give the copyright owner access.
> I think a reasonable right of access should be implied; but I've
> only found one case that says so.

Can you tell us what this case is? Is it the second decision after CCNV v. Reid? I recall that in this case, after the court established that Reid's sculpture was an independent work and not a work made for hire, that Reid (the creator and copyright owner of the work) tried to get access to the sculpture to copy it, but was denied by CCNV. The court then ruled that CCNV could not deny access.

Tyler repeats this notion of access control in a separate post on April 5 but in the context of public domain imagery (Restrictions in Public Domain Performances):

On 2000-04-05, Tyler Ochoa <tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu> wrote:
>
> It is extremely common for museums of all types to place terms and
> conditions on the use of reproductions of works in their collections.
> The museums' argument is that this is merely a contract, a binding
> legal agreement. If you don't like the terms and conditions, you
> don't have to agree; but they don't have to give you access because
> they own the physical copies to which they are giving you access.
> The counter-argument is the "public domain" is meaningless without a
> reasonable right of access on the part of the public; and therefore
> that the terms and conditions ought not to be legally enforceable.
> But the current trend seems to be toward enforcing such agreements.

Can you give us any specific cases or anecdotal examples of where these agreement have been enforced?

Robert Panzer
VAGA
<bigbusie[_at_]aol.com> Received on Tue Apr 11 2000 - 04:20:18 GMT