The Supreme Court of Sweden ruled yesterday that Wikimedia Sverige (Sweden) violated the country’s copyright laws by gathering and posting photographs of public artworks on a website, the Local Sweden reported.
copyright laws
Posted inNews
UK Copyright Law Gets Exception for Parody
A series of updates to UK copyright law are scheduled to go into effect tomorrow, finally allowing for the use of copyrighted material in the creation of parody, the BBC reported.
Posted inArt
Artist Continues Battle with Penguin Books over Satire
Miriam Elia, the artist accused of copyright infringement by Penguin UK for her children’s book parody We Go to the Gallery, is auctioning off the remaining 10 copies of her first edition run on eBay.
Posted inArt
Penguin Group Targets Artist Over Satirical Art Book
Last December, artist and comedian Miriam Elia raised funds on Kickstarter to publish the first edition of a satirical book she had written with her brother, Ezra. Called We Go to the Gallery, the book is a riff on what’s popularly known in the UK as the “Peter and Jane” series. But shortly after the release, she received a cease-and-desist letter from Penguin UK.
Posted inNews
Auction Houses Lobby Against Artist Resale Royalty Act
The fight to obtain resale royalties for visual artists may be gaining momentum thanks to the newly introduced American Royalties, Too (ART) Act of 2014, but the major auction houses are determined to stop it.
Posted inNews
Congressmen Propose National Resale Royalty Act for Artists
US Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Ed Markey (D-MA) and Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) have introduced a bill that would give visual artists royalties on the resale of their work, or droit de suite, Congress announced this afternoon.
Posted inNews
Copyright Laws Are a-Changin’ (Maybe) in the US and EU
The arena of copyright is a global morass of collaboration, appropriation, and theft. Rights management is a nightmare for artists and a cash machine for the legal profession, but two recent developments, one in the United States and the other in the European Union, aim, respectively, to expand the scope of royalties and streamline process by which rights and permissions are transacted.
Posted inOpinion
UK’s New “Instagram Act” Stretches Copyright to Its Breaking Point
The UK has passed a new act that has photographers and other creators worried about maintaining ownership of their images. The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act theoretically aims to make it easier for companies to publish orphan works, which are images and other content whose author or copyright can’t be identified. But whereas in the past, orphan works were often out-of-print books and historical unattributed photos, today millions of images are quickly orphaned online, as they move from Instagram to Twitter to Facebook to Tumblr without attribution along the way.
Posted inNews
Bob Dylan’s Latest Album Is a Copyright Ploy
Master songwriter Bob Dylan’s latest release looks like an invitation to steal. The cover of the 86-track compilation is a photograph of worn paper, like the surface of an old file folder. On the front is scribbled in marker: Bob Dylan: The Copyright Extension Collection Vol. 1. It may put the viewer in mind of System of a Down’s Steal This Album!, but theft is the last thing on Sony’s mind — the compilation is meant as a tactic to maintain copyright control of the music amidst Europe’s shifting public domain laws.
Posted inOpinion
Happy Public Domain Day!
Continuing a tradition we began last year, we’d like to wish you not just Happy New Year today, but also Happy Public Domain Day!
Posted inOpinion
Happy Belated Public Domain Day!
The advantage of the New Year is that new and wonderful things are liberated enter the public domain. The Art and Artifice blog has posted a new list of artists whose works as of January 1, 2012 can be used, republished, translated or transformed till your heart’s content!
Posted inArt
Lawyers Weigh In on Appropriation Art and Fair Use
The New York City Bar Association’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Appropriation: Contemporary Art After Cariou v. Prince” was, as billed, “a frank discussion of fair use and artistic practice.” And it was, indeed, frank, with all six panelists speaking plainly and tough audience questions encouraged. But it was also, clouded and meandering, the way that all intellectual property discussions are.
