Re: Re: Coipyright in the Hollywood Sign

Perhaps in the United states this may be so but at least in Australia, by legislation the right to photograph famous natural sites (national park areas) as for instance Eyres rock (or now known as Uluru) is prohibited and the use of photographs thereafter is controlled or at least attempted to be controlled. The Government is not in this case using using any of the normal systems eg copyright or Trademark but has   simply created the rights by sui generis legislation. The justification is I think that the areas may be sensitive from an indigineous point of view and photographs may therefore need to have a license which includes a fee for ensuring that the photo is not inappropriate.
On 21/06/2005, at 6:00 AM, Scott Butcher wrote:

> I do a bit of photography ... Freelance, art prints, short-run posters.
>
> I've always been concerned about trademarks and knowing when a property
> release is required. From everything that I've come to learn, it
> seems like
> something normally viewable from a public space can be photographed
> and used
> without property releases, licensing fees, etc.
>
> This forum has been useful to me when I've previously posted
> questions. I
> can recall one question I had a while back about photographing murals
> on the
> sides of buildings. If I zoom in ONLY on the mural, which is
> protected by
> copyright, and crop out everything else, I can't sell that work
> because it
> is clearly a reproduction of the mural. But if I zoom out, and take a
> photo
> of a building on which the mural is located, I'm apparently permitted
> to
> sell it without fear of copyright violation.
>
> I know that members of this forum have previously referenced a Warner
> Brothers case in which a work of art (again attached to a building)
> appeared
> in a movie (Batman, perhaps?). The Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame was
> another
> case often referenced.
>
> And while a sign is not a building, wouldn't the concept hold true?
> If I
> take a picture of the hill on which the Hollywood sign sits, how am I
> infringing upon a trademark? No one owns the trademark to the hill.
>
> A member of the forum included a link to an aerial view of the sign.
> Aerial
> views throughout the United States, and world, are now available and
> for
> sale on the Web (e.g., www.terraserver.com). Would not the same
> Hollywood
> Chamber argument apply? If the selling of a photo of the Hollywood
> sign is
> a trademark infringement, does it matter from what vantage point the
> photo
> was taken? In fact, the aerial cameras go where normal cameras can't.
> But
> I'm not familiar with a "slew" of lawsuits that should have resulted.
> And
> how many movies have you seen with sweeping cityscapes ... Buildings,
> fountains, statues, public art, signage, etc.?
>
> If EVERYTHING in your photo other than the Hollywood sign was cropped
> out,
> revealing only the letters, perhaps there is an infringement. But if
> your
> photo shows the context of the sign (the hillside), and was taken from
> a
> public place, I have a hard time understanding how there can be any
> infringement.
>
> You may want to also contact the American Society of Media
> Photographers
> (www.asmp.org).
>
> Scott Butcher
> York, Pennsylvania
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property
> [mailto:CNI-COPYRIGHT[_at_]cni.org] On Behalf Of Joseph Pietro Riolo
> Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 4:00 PM
> To: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property
> Subject: [CNI-(C)] Re: [CNI-(C)] Coipyright in the Hollywood Sign
>
> On 6/15/05, Richard G.McCracken <R.G.Mccracken[_at_]open.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>> We've received a request to pay licensing fees for use of the
>> photograph from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerc, claiming that the
>> sign itself is protected by copyright.
>
> My feeling is that the writer of the request, which I presumed to be a
> stupid lawyer, doesn't know the difference between copyright and
> trademark.
>
> Here are the steps to find out what trademarks that Hollywood Chamber
> of
> Commerce own:
>
> 1. Go to http://www.uspto.gov/
>
> 2. Click on "Search" under "Trademarks" in the left side.
>
> 3. Click on "New User Form Search (Basic)" in the middle of the web
> page.
>
> 4. Enter "Hollywood Chamber of Commerce" in the box for "Search Term".
>
> 5. Select the field "Owner Name and Address" in the pull-down list
> next to
> "Field".
>
> 6. Click on "Submit Query".
>
> 7. You will get a list of 26 records. As a sample, click on the
> number
> 2118638 under the column heading "Reg. Number".
>
> 8. You will see the image of the mark showing "Hollywood" in shape
> and form
> similar to what is seen on the hill.
>
> Based on the above, it is my feeling that the issue is trademark, not
> copyright. I don't know about your country but in my country, using
> trademarks in non-commercial ways is almost always legal. However,
> your
> case borders on commercial area (your university is in business selling
> education to earn profit to pay professors and so on) and I don't know
> how
> prominent is the picture of Hollywood sign in your education.
> Trademark is
> not my area and I better stop now.
>
>
> Joseph Pietro Riolo
> <josephpietrojeungriolo[_at_]gmail.com>
> <riolo[_at_]voicenet.com>
>
> Number of days left until 1-1-2019 when all knowledge of 1923 in the
> land of
> the U.S.A. will be freed from their copyright owners' prisons: 4,947
>
> Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the
> public domain.
>
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Received on Tue Jun 21 2005 - 21:35:00 GMT