Talk:The Little Mermaid (statue)

I have photos of one in Podgorica or podgora Croatia from 92 but can't find it anywhere — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phunny12000 (talk • contribs) 19:29, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Untitled
A miniature replica of the statue exists in the central train station of Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. I have no information concerning the background for this, but it would be interesting to know! - torben@g-b.dk

Original?
Is there a particular reason all of the pictures in the article are of reproductions, rather than the original? It seems rather odd.TFGreg (talk) 16:20, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The top photo is the real thing and not a reproduction, although admittedly not in its usual surroundings. --Saddhiyama (talk) 17:11, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * As far as I can gather a photo of the original in Denmark can't be featured on wikipedia as Denmark doesn't have a "freedom of panorama" exception to its copyright law. So a photo of the statue in its original location breaches the artist's copyright and hence it doesn't meet the standards for inclusion in wikipedia. Pjf33 (talk) 21:15, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Replicas
The TELUS Convention Centre in Calgary has a reproduction, purchased by the Danish-Canadian Society and donated to the city in 1974. At that time, it was apparently one of only three half-size reproductions: http://www.calgary.ca/CSPS/Recreation/Pages/Public-Art/Downtown-Public-Art-Circuit-tour.aspx#mermaid There is now a website which sells authorized bronze reproductions ( http://www.mermaidsculpture.dk/ ). Presumably this is one of the first authorized reproductions made? Perhaps it's worth noting that there may be many authorized replicas, both in public and private collections? Country Wife (talk) 20:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the information! It can be incorporated into the article, into a new paragraph maybe. (As for the website selling 'authorized replicas'; obviously the Eriksen family has decided that making money from suing 'copyright violations' isn't enough; so they're selling the statues for huge sums of money. Smart. ) --Peter (Talk page) 20:57, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Size relative to life size
Would it be possible to add with sourcing the rough size of the figure in proportion to the the size/height of the human it was based on. 87.114.142.255 (talk) 18:23, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

re changes of March 29 2013
An editor made some fairly extensive changes, the diff is here. The changes may be fine, I'd like to know more about them. The editor (User:Member skov) is a brand-new editor and these are his first edits, which we welcome, but I do notice that he changed "has been a major tourist attraction since 1913" to "has been a major tourist attraction since 1930". The statue was installed in 1913. It may have not been a major tourist attraction until 1930, but what happened then? A couple of other edits deleted referenced material, and I'd like to know if there's a problem with the reference or the editor thought the material extraneous, or what. There are a couple of small grammar errors too. So all in all I elected to revert the edits for now and invite the editor to discuss them here first. Herostratus (talk) 17:10, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

permanent location of statue on dry land at water's edge, and reasons for it, versus temporary location of replica in Tivoli
The mermaid statue is often depicted as if sitting on a rock surrounded by water (e.g. in the main article picture, which has a water background and is closely cropped at the bottom effectively hiding the land foreground), and I think many people who have never been to Copenhagen think she sits on island. But in fact the permanent location has always been on a rock resting dry land, at the water's edge, where tourists can touch or even climb onto the her without getting their feet wet. During the statue's visit to Shanghai in 2010 an authorised copy was installed on a rock in the Tivoli Gardens, in a more aquatic setting, surrounded by water and not accessible from land. But after the statue's return to Langelinie she was again placed in a land-accessible location, despite fact that in 2006 city officials had considered moving her several meters off shore. The officials may have reasoned that such a move would have been counterproductive, frustrating the harmless attentions of her many fans, who merely wanted to climb on her and be photographed with her, without stopping serious vandals. My recent changes have sought to point out the (I think) underappreciated fact of the statue being on shore rather than in the water, without giving it undue emphasis. I did so by calling the Tivoli location "more mermaid-like", which Hazhk deleted on grounds of its being too much of an opinion. Perhaps so, and certainly it is somewhat silly to speculate about what it means to be mermaid-like, or degrees of mermaid-likeness. But is there another way to gently get the point across?CharlesHBennett (talk) 23:09, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I think your point is valid and we should emphasise that this is a sculpture that is on land and very accessible, hence the vandalism. I think your most recent edit is helpful. Perhaps we should consider a short sentence in the lead explaining the statue's inland location? -- Hazhk Talk to me 01:34, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Original or replica?
It says "Aside from the statue on display, which is a replica of the original,". After reading about all the vandalism and getting upset, it would be nice to know if it was a replica that was vandalized or the original, when it was switched, why, and where original is now if not on display. The entire article suggests that the original rests on display and was vandalized, until this one sentence towards the end which suggests something entirely different. Which is it?.45Colt 13:13, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070909035947/http://www.hcandersen-homepage.dk/skulptur_den_lille_havfrue.htm to http://www.hcandersen-homepage.dk/skulptur_den_lille_havfrue.htm

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Clarification of article header image
There seems to be some confusion about the censorship of the statue in the article. I'll clear things up:

The statue and its likeness is copyright protected by the heirs of the person who designed it. The statue is privately owned.

As can be read in the description of the image itself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copenhagen_-_the_little_mermaid_statue_-_2013.jpg, it clearly states "This file will not be in the public domain in its home country until January 1, 2030 and should not be transferred to Wikimedia Commons until that date, as Commons requires that images be free in the source country and in the United States."

The current owners of the copyright of the statue has successfully gotten multiple danish newspapers to retract their images of the statue and pay a big fee, as it violated the copyright. The same applies to wikipedia - the contents of the image has to be free of copyright in the country it was taken and USA. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Photographs - it states "The shape and design of utilitarian objects, such as cars, furniture, and tools, are generally considered uncopyrightable, allowing such photos to be put into the public domain or freely licensed; however this does not extend to decorative features such as artistic elements on the object's surfaces like an artistic painting on a car's hood."

As is stated, wikipedia is not allowed to use any and all images. Wikipedia only uses images from the Wikimedia Commons archive, and this image is not a part of that archive until the year 2030. — Preceding unsigned comment added by White Guy (talk • contribs) 12:59, 15 January 15 2020 (UTC)
 * Ah, you did take it here, I missed this earlier. Some of the copyright editors here should be pinged for a "ruling", I'm not clear on the law regarding this use of the picture from a U.S. entity like Wikipedia. No, Wikipedia uses its own pictures in addition to Commons images (maybe that's where we are looking at this from two different viewpoints, that you didn't know that Wikipedia has its own image archive). Randy Kryn (talk) 18:46, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Will ping, a statue expert here, who may know who else to ping. Randy Kryn (talk) 18:49, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * As Randy mentions, we don't exclusively use images from the Wikimedia Commons. We use media hosted on the English Wikipedia when it's acceptable for Wikipedia but not the Wikimedia Commons. Namely in cases of fair use, or when an image is in the public domain in the United States but not in the source country.
 * As the English Wikipedia is hosted in the United States, we follow U.S. public domain law. This is different from the Wikimedia Commons, which requires content to be freely licensed or in the public domain in both the United States and its source country. Since The Little Mermaid was created before 1925, I believe we consider the work to be in the public domain in the United States, and can use the image freely (see Template:PD-US-expired-abroad). It does get a bit complicated since a sculpture isn't necessarily considered published when erected, and we don't have much case law surrounding 3D artworks...perhaps Another Believer can shed light on that. But with that being said, even if the sculpture is considered copyrighted in the United States, we can claim fair use (see next bullet).
 * The non-free content policy lets us use images of copyrighted works under a claim of fair use, when no free equivalent is available, or could be created, that would serve the same encyclopedic purpose. In the case of a copyrighted statue, the only way to adequately portray the statue is a photo of the statue itself, as is the case here.
 * ~ Super  Hamster  Talk Contribs 18:58, 15 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I see. The danish wiki-page is of a different opinion, which is where the picture comes from. They think they will get in trouble if they don't use the censored version. Is the danish page subject to danish law, or does every country's wiki follow US law? Because if it's the latter then it should be no problem for them to use an image of the statue. Maybe it would be a good idea to let them know. - '~User:WhiteGuy'' — Preceding unsigned comment added by White Guy (talk • contribs) 20:12, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Each language edition of Wikipedia comes up with their own policies. Looking at the Danish Wikipedia's image policy, it looks like they do follow Danish law, and err on the side of caution by not allowing fair use images. ~ Super  Hamster  Talk Contribs 21:23, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

"Den lille Havfrue" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Den lille Havfrue. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 October 11 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Stefan2 (talk) 22:13, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Note "A" re: the original "never" being on display
This fact is hidden in note "A" at the end of the article. It appears to be something that would make more sense in-line in the article, but glancing through, I do not see a good place to put it, to fit with the flow of the article. Any ideas? Peace and Passion &#9774; ''("I'm listening....") 07:27, 3 February 2023 (UTC)