Intellectual Property, Indeed!
by VinceDaliessio
While searching for follow-up information on the terminal collapse at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris last May, I came across a curious article in a German online architectural publication "Structurae";
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Dear Visitor of Structurae,
At the end of May 2004, Structurae was admonished (i.e. sued) by the Verwertungsgesellschaft Bild-Kunst (VG Bild-Kunst), a German organization representing visual artists' copyrights, for the unlicensed use of slightly over 60 images and requested payment of usage fees.
The architects Paul Andreu and Roger Taillibert as well as the Fondation Le Corbusier (representing the deceased architects Le Corbusier and Pierre Andr Jeanneret) as the copyright owners of their own works also own the copyright on photographs of their work. Under German law this is however limited to photographs taken from a view-point not accessible to the public (including interior images). This fact was unknown to me until that point.
The photographers themselves had already agreed to the publication free of charge on Structurae, although quite a large number of the photos were made by myself. The images were removed from public display on Structurae as quickly as possible although the VG Bild-Kunst did not identify which images were actually subject to their claims.
So, let's see, German copyright law prohibits photographs of failed buildings from being published without permission of (and payment to) the architects of those failed buildings, even if the architect is deceased? So much for the probitive power of journalism. Given the increased tendency that jurists in this country have for looking to European law for inspiration, it seems only a matter of time before such restraint occurs here.
One is left to wonder - exactly who benefits from this scheme? Well, we know it isn't the public, let alone the people killed in the collapse.
Perhaps we will allow that it might benefit messirs Andreu and Tallibert, as well as Aeroports de Paris, who engineered the whole debacle, as well as this one;
