Legalese and the Broadway Steps
Jack Mackie who created the famous Broadway Steps on Capitol Hill in Seattle is currently embroiled in a very complex copyright dispute with a photographer who took a shot of a woman dancing on the steps several years ago. Apparently, Jack Mackies owns the rights to the photograph because of an earlier case, but has since written letters about the use of the photographs for 2 days on a stock photography site and might be seeking thousands of bucks from the photographer, who claims that he received $80 at most for the shot.
As I am not a copyright attorney, this makes absolutely no sense to me. The best run-down of the situation that I saw appeared in the Stranger’s Slog, which gives the history of the legal battle from all sides and also some legalese to explain it.
This is not the first time that there has been a copyright infringement on an important public piece of art in Seattle. According to this article, the infamous Fremont troll has been misused in photographs in commercial publications including People magazine and Sunset magazine. In each instance, the publications eventually reached out of court settlements with the artists. From what I can understand, the idea is that even if a piece of art is public, the copyright to the art still belongs to the artists unless otherwise stated. At the time of the case with People magazine, the people of Fremont were outraged that their precious troll would be used for commercial purposes, which seems ironic given the fact that Adobe now takes up half of Fremont.
I still am having trouble wrapping my head around this law for the basic reason that I fail to understand why a public sculpture can’t be photographed and then used. Presumably, the photographer does not only use the art in the picture, but composes it differently as in the case with the woman dancing on the steps. If I want to post a picture of a public statue in Seattle, do I have to first track down the artist to do so?
What about public buildings? Should the “rights” to them be owned by the architects? (I’m pretty sure I know what Ayn Rand would have to say....)
As for this law in general, I’m of the opinion that while this law is definitely intended to protect artists, it should be amended to protect photographers as well,allowed to incorporate public pieces of art in their photography without giving up the rights.
And, as for the Broadway steps, they are part of the community's heritage now (abbreviated history of the Broadway steps here) and should be left alone.
