Museum Files $2 Million Suit Against Photographer for Posting Photos
Photographer Thomas Hawk visited the World Erotic Art Museum in South Beach took photos, he claims he didn't see the no photography sign. Now the South Florida institution filed "fradulent" DMCA notice with Flickr and Yahoo, which owns Flickr, has threatened Hawk's entire account with permanent dele
Interesting/crazy case of a museum photo policy being waaay too aggressive.
Photographer Thomas Hawk visited the World Erotic Art Museum in South Beach took photos, he claims he didn’t see the no photography sign. Now the South Florida institution filed “fradulent” DMCA notice with Flickr and Yahoo, which owns Flickr, has threatened Hawk’s entire account with permanent deletion without future warning.
Hawk is a smart guy and knows the WEAM — yes, that’s the acronym — is overstepping. He also makes some strong points on his blog, including:
There are over three million photos tagged museum. I believe that our culture is richer when works of art (especially from museums) are photographed and put online for the entire world to see. It troubles me to think that all any museum would need to do to have these items removed from Flickr is submit a bogus DMCA request claiming copyright over 100% of the items in their collection that they quite clearly do not have.
CrunchGear also chimes in here, and it’s worthwhile reading the comment from someone who called the museum to ask about their policy and was confronted with Kafkaesque absurdity.
