Forbidden images -- polishing The Bean ...

[bmattock]

There's a FLW urn in the Dana Thomas house that the state of Illinois bought for $250,000. If I recall correctly, their reason for not allowing photographs was due to copyrights owned by the FLW family.

R.J.

Wait until someone buys a FLW-built designed house and finds out that they can't paint it. They 'own' the house, but FLW family owns the rights to how it looks.

I could be wrong, but I thought I heard of that happening.

Frankly, if it happened to me, I'd bulldoze the place just to hear them scream, and then take bankruptcy and walk away. If I buy something, it is MINE. I'll paint it blue and glue beef jerky to it with a rotating disco ball that plays "Staying Alive" in Cantonese if I want.

Or this:

http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[dmr]

My only objection was that they didn't put up any signs ... "Don't take photographs in this room." ... But they apparently thought it was better to hire a bunch of security guards to rush over and tell me not to take a photo when it was not ok, and to ignore me otherwise.

That's one of my gripes as well. If they would at least put up some circle-slash-camera signs, at least we would know that they don't want pictures taken, but I have yet to see such a sign.

We see No Smoking signs all over the place, which some choose to ignore <g>, and No Dogs and now even No Radios, which some blatantly ignore, but for cameras, they seem to have this desire to pounce on you as if you should have known all along not to take pictures. Oh well ...

 

[ch1]

Wait until someone buys a FLW-built designed house and finds out that they can't paint it. They 'own' the house, but FLW family owns the rights to how it looks.

I could be wrong, but I thought I heard of that happening.

Frankly, if it happened to me, I'd bulldoze the place just to hear them scream, and then take bankruptcy and walk away. If I buy something, it is MINE. I'll paint it blue and glue beef jerky to it with a rotating disco ball that plays "Staying Alive" in Cantonese if I want.

Or this:

http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

I believe that most folks who would buy a FLW house would not want to change a thing. You don't pay a premium to bulldoze something. Not too many people who buy Picassos do so in order to paint over them!

As far as making changes to a FLW house - it is likely that there are deed restrictions and covenants that control the ability to make changes. I do recall that the current owner of Falling Water, a FLW house near Pittsburgh which incorporates a stream with a watherfall flowing under the house, has been seeking permission to make some design changes to stop dry rot etc. I believe he had to retain engineers to show that FLW's design was "flawed". Not sure how his case came out.

Property rights are fine - but they can be legally limited by deed and covenant restrictions. Nothing is absolute. It's why you do your due diligence before you buy!

Now to try and go back to being only slightly OT - bringing a lawsuit for prior restraint could indeed be costly. Unless you could convice a group like the ACLU or a law school rights project that there was a substantial first amendment issue and got them to take up your "cause". I'm doubtful on that one.

More than likely, I suspect, is that as the novelty of ths bean/blob wears off the owner (SBC was it?) will tire of the expense of retaining a security guard and leave the sculptor to enforce her copyright. That is unless she has some kind of contract with SBC that requires them to protect her copyright.

More to the point, if you as a photographer expect folks to respect your art and rights, perhaps you should be as respectful of hers. :angel:

 

[Sonnar Brian]

It sounds like personal use photographs, non-commercial are okay. Commercial shots wanting to use the sculpture in ads, for-profit, sound like they are banned- or at least need a permit.

Am I mis-reading the intent?

 

[doubs43]

Westminster Cathedral (London) is conspicuously posted "NO PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED!" My father was touring it one afternoon when he noticed security guards hustling a man out the door with the comment "NO PHOTOGRAPY means exactly that!". In this instance I believe that the ban on pictures was to protect certain items from the cumulative effect of electronic flash.

Walker

 

[RJBender]

In the Boston museum we visited last year, they would let me take photographs of some paintings and sculptures, but not others. I asked a guard what the dealio was, and was told that some belong to the museum and some are on loan to the museum. The museum allows photographs of the ones they own.

My only objection was that they didn't put up any signs - like "Photography ok in this room" or "Don't take photographs in this room." I'd have been happy to obey them if they were there. But they apparently thought it was better to hire a bunch of security guards to rush over and tell me not to take a photo when it was not ok, and to ignore me otherwise. I got twitchy after awhile, I tell ya.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

In St. Louis, they almost yell at you if you stand too close to the paintings. Why don't they just rope off the area or put some markings on the floor. It makes you feel like you're on a third grade field trip. 😛

R.J.

 

[RJBender]

Westminster Cathedral (London) is conspicuously posted "NO PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED!" My father was touring it one afternoon when he noticed security guards hustling a man out the door with the comment "NO PHOTOGRAPY means exactly that!". In this instance I believe that the ban on pictures was to protect certain items from the cumulative effect of electronic flash.

Walker

Well, at least they were polite about it! 😛 They could have ripped the film out of his camera, handcuffed him and beat him senseless with a billy club! 🙁

I thought it's been scientifically proven that repeated exposure to electronic flash has no effect on the pigments in oil paintings. 😕 Maybe they're afraid someone could use a flash to temporarily blind a guard.

R.J.

 

[djon]

Flash takes away from the pleasure of others in galleries and museums and concerts. It's like cellphones in restaurants or farting in bed. It's crude and insensitive. Nobody who uses a flash in a gallery has any idea what he's photographing anyway. Drag him out and toss him in the street. Forty lashes. 😀

 

[RJBender]

Flash takes away from the pleasure of others in galleries and museums and concerts. It's like cellphones in restaurants or farting in bed. It's crude and insensitive. Nobody who uses a flash in a gallery has any idea what he's photographing anyway. Drag him out and toss him in the street. Forty lashes. 😀

Don't tell me your laws in New Mexico are more draconian than those in Texas? 😱

R.J.

 

[RJBender]

Yes, it does look like a blob of mercury, or a metallic jelly bean. I don't know why I'm fascinated by this thing, but I am.

D, it's just like those "gazing globes" folks used to put in their gardens, except that it's not a perfect sphere. When it appears in High Times magazine as the best place to get stoned in America they'll probably let the graffiti artists in to put their signatures of this blob of metal. http://www.millenniumpark.org/artandarchitecture/cloud_gate.html

Yes, we should respect the artist's rights as Copake (George?) stated. However, keep in mind that without the skills of the ironworkers, welders and laborers this piece of art would not exist.

R.J.

 

[ch1]

It sounds like personal use photographs, non-commercial are okay. Commercial shots wanting to use the sculpture in ads, for-profit, sound like they are banned- or at least need a permit.

Am I mis-reading the intent?

Brian,

You're hitting the nail right on the head! It is a matter of intellectual property rights - as well as copyright in this situation.

Few, if any, would object to you taking a photo for your own enjoyment. But when you take it in order to sell it - you are stealing the rights of the artist who has every reason to expect that it is she who should commercially benefit from images or reproductions!

It is why Cristo did not object to individuals taking personal photos of their experience walking through "The Gates" project in NYC's Central Park last Winter but forcefully (in a legal sense) protected his rights to photos and renditions of the entire work.

It is much more difficult for large media "public" artists to protect their rights than it is for authors, musicians etc. who have well established protections via their marketing channels.

Seems to me that if we want others to respect our artistic photographic endeavors - we should be at the forefront of defending the rights of this sculptor.

Okay, George, off the soapbox now. Back in your cage. 😀

 

[RJBender]

Hopefully, the artist will be selling 1/100th scale replicas of Cloud Gate and The making of Cloud Gate DVDs just in time for Christmas.
http://www.newsreview.com/issues/chico/2005-04-21/backbeat.asp

D, let us know if your next Chicago phone directory has the bean on the cover.

R.J.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Westminster Cathedral (London) is conspicuously posted "NO PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED!" My father was touring it one afternoon when he noticed security guards hustling a man out the door with the comment "NO PHOTOGRAPY means exactly that!".

To play Devil's Advocate, "No photography" is not a sentence, so he could have argued that point. English is the most you-know-what-I-meant language I know, with rules so out the window that at least non-native speakers can argue its loopholes.

What they should do is just put big Hello Kitty light-reflective-watermarks on everything; that should deter any flashlights, and the sight would discourage any serious photograph.

 

[RJBender]

...I also find it fascinating (and sometimes frustrating and even scary) as to what people say cannot be photographed. One I keep hearing about is a restriction of night shots of the Eiffel Tower in Paris...

Gabrielma would know. Have you seen his website?
http://www.gmaphoto.com/

R.J.

 

[ch1]

Hopefully, the artist will be selling 1/100th scale replicas of Cloud Gate and The making of Cloud Gate DVDs just in time for Christmas.
http://www.newsreview.com/issues/chico/2005-04-21/backbeat.asp

D, let us know if your next Chicago phone directory has the bean on the cover.

R.J.

And why not? What would be wrong with thet?

It is her artistic endeavor - no one else's.

Why do you feel offended if she protects her product so that she reaps the profits of her art?

I hope she does get paid handsomely if The Bean appears on the phone book cover. After all, if it was your creation - wouldn't you want to be the one to benefit?

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

The restriction is one that they enforce at will; what has happened is that the "Eiffel Tower lights" look has been copyrighted. What they say they intend to do with those rights is to control its distribution (i.e. commercial tourism brochures, enterprises using the "look", etc.) but not "prohibit" tourists themselves from taking pictures of it.

Zat wuld be ridiculos. And I agree. They also allow artistic use of it. And to that I say, trés bon.

 

[ch1]

To play Devil's Advocate, "No photography" is not a sentence, so he could have argued that point. English is the most you-know-what-I-meant language I know, with rules so out the window that at least non-native speakers can argue its loopholes.

What they should do is just put big Hello Kitty light-reflective-watermarks on everything; that should deter any flashlights, and the sight would discourage any serious photograph.

Presumably you do not practice law in the United States. Because if you did, you would realize how quickly a judge would strike down such a silly argument.

Perhaps you should not rely upon anecdotes and television when opining on US jurisprudence. What makes for "juicy" entertainment is not necessarily reality, counselor.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Presumably you do not practice law in the United States. Because if you did, you would realize how quickly a judge would strike down such a silly argument.

Perhaps you should not rely upon anecdotes and television when opining on US jurisprudence. What makes for "juicy" entertainment is not necessarily reality, counselor.

I see one thing and something else gets posted. OK, my response to this: no, that's why I'd like to keep my humanity intact.

and Westminster ain't not in no U.S. 😉

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Here's some quick info on the "controversy"; the copyright nightmare of the "lighted" Eiffel Tower is unique, because individual photographs are an artist's work, yet the SNTE did some work on a national monument and pulled a Microsoft and copyrighted their "work" on something that already existed...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower

 

[RJBender]

And why not? What would be wrong with thet?

It is her artistic endeavor - no one else's.

Why do you feel offended if she protects her product so that she reaps the profits of her art?

I hope she does get paid handsomely if The Bean appears on the phone book cover. After all, if it was your creation - wouldn't you want to be the one to benefit?

I see absolutely nothing wrong with that, George. In fact, I would be thrilled if the artist did what I am suggesting! 🙂 A 1/100 th replica signed by the artist would probably sell out quickly in all the stores along the Magnificent Mile. I wasn't trying to be sarcastic in that post. The post prior to that one was supposed to be funny.

R.J.