File talk:Barlach Magdeburger Ehrenmal.jpg

Copyright: Company claims that a picture is violating their licence rights
(Copied from Village pump (miscellaneous) by Chris 73 Talk 03:19, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC))

The image commons:Image:Barlach Magdeburger Ehrenmal.jpg shows a sculpture by Barlach from 1929. The picture was taken by me, after purchasing a photo permit at the Cathedral of Magdeburg where the sculpture is on public display. An anonymous user on the commons listed the image for deletion, claiming that the "Ernst Barlach Lizenzverwaltung Company claims that this picture is violating their licence rights on Barlach's works". (see also: commons:Commons:Deletion requests). The company's homepage is here (english), stating that All kinds of use and exploitation are strictly subject to our permission and licence charge and are to be marked with © Ernst Barlach Lizenzverwaltung Ratzeburg.. I am not that familiar with copyright law, but I thought that a photo of a copyrighted object can be taken and published legally. Otherwise pretty much all modern art, architecture, or objects would be copyrighted. I am also not sure about the ownership of the sculpture, i.e. if it belongs to the company. I am also not sure how these requests are based on german law, or if german law applies here at all. Any comments are very welcome -- Chris 73 Talk 01:30, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * What are the terms of your photo permit? &mdash;Mike 04:14, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't remember. I paid 2 euro for a small slip of paper, which I have thrown out long ago. This was advertised at the entrance of the church, and also priced so that tourists can take pics. -- Chris 73 Talk 05:07, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * Whether German copyright law applies, I do not know, but I suspect that this may well be the case, given that the image was (a) taken in Germany, (b) the creator of the sculpture was a German, and (c) the photographer, too. (?) If the sculpture had been standing outside, there'd be no question at all: §59 of the German Urheberrecht explicitly allows taking pictures from public squares and roads and publishing these images. However, since the sculpture is inside the cathedral, this doesn't apply. It appears that with your photo permit you just got a license to take the picture for personal use, but did not get a license for general public redistribution of the picture&mdash;such redistribution apparently is only allowed for non-profit use and maybe for use (as a quote or illustrative example) for the purposes of criticism or research §51(1). See also this pretty good discussion (in German). For better info, I'd try asking on this mailing list of German lawyers, they have many discussions regarding copyright concerning photographs in their archives. (By the way, Ernst Barlach, the creator of the sculpture, died on Oct 24, 1938. Hence on January 1, 2009, the copyright on his works expires §64, and from then on, one can indeed use this photo for any purpose. The photo itself is a Lichtbildwerk (cf. Template_talk:PD-Germany) and copyrighted until 70 years after the death of the photographer, too.) Final note: the same problem may also exist for de:Bild:Güstrow Barlachs-Mutter-Erde.jpg: this garden is not a public square or road but private property... :-( Lupo 09:34, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks a million for the excellent links and infos! I will try to contact the Church again to see if the permit included commercial use, and also who owns the Barlach sculpture. If not, thn we'll have to move the pics from the commons to Wikipedia, where I think the use may be feasible again, as non-commercial or fair use. -- Chris 73 Talk 09:14, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
 * As a follow-up comment, I don't know the details of German copyright law, but from what I can tell, UK copyright law doesn't cover sculptures, whilst recent US copyright law cover's both sculptures and buildings, with exceptions for what can be seen from public spaces. -- Solipsist 19:59, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Read the Copyright FAQ - James and I wrote it to avoid these questions. In the US: Statues can be copyrighted, and pictures of them are derivative works (pictures of 2D works with "slavish efforts" made to ensure accuracy are copies and *not* derivative works). In this case, if the statue is not in the public domain, a picture of it would be a derivative works and therefore could not be distributed without consent of the copyright holder. &rarr;Raul654 21:03, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
 * I have reached the secretary of the church in magdeburg by phone, and she thinks the sculpture is the property of the church. The person in charge who knows more about it, however, is right now on holiday and will be back on February 2nd. I will call again at that time. -- Chris 73 Talk 09:32, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately the copyright isn't usually transfered with the ownership of item, so that may not help. I'm not able to follow the German texts that User:Lupo helpfully linked. Is it clear that 3D objects are covered by German copyright law? -- Solipsist 20:43, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, absolutely, and 100% clear: §2(1), item #4. Lupo 14:00, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh well ... I'll move it back to the english wiki, and add a fairuse tag. Alternatively, I also have a photo from further away, showing the whole memorial site, not just the sculpture, which I could add to the english wiki. -- Chris 73 Talk 02:56, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

An anecdote
Only loosely related to the above, but in order to show that also "outdoor" photographs of "buildings" can be copyright-infringing in (some) droit d'auteur countries.

The case is famous, it concerns the EU parliament building in Brussels: presently the architect of the building, advocating "droit d'auteur", prohibits any use of images of that building (photographs, logos based on it,...), e.g. by the EU administration on their letterheads.

This led to court proceedings, which until now have been won by the architect. And EU officials complaining themselves for having been insufficiently cauteous at time when they drew up the contract with the architect.

Nobody that hasn't been there really knows what the building looks like. Television (in Belgium at least), resorts to an areal photograph of a large part of Brussels, where the building is more or less visible in a corner. Sometimes interviews with EU politicians are taken so close to the mirror-glass facades of the building, that it could appear as any other modern building.

For explanation of "droit d'auteur", see e.g. Intellectual rights and Moral rights.

--Francis Schonken 14:16, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Which building are you refferring to? The Buildings of the European Parliament article hosts photos from various images of various EU parliament buildings in Brussels, and there is a relevant category in wikicommons and all photos seem to be accepted as free (if they weren't wikicommons would have banished them). --Michalis Famelis (talk)  11:54, 28 July 2007 (UTC)