Cc-uk mailing list

[Ben Dembroski <info AT arthacking.org>]

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:08:51 +0100
Rob Myers <rob AT robmyers.org> wrote:

> On 19 Sep 2005, at 23:56, Andrea Rota wrote:
> 
> > To make a long story short: I'm trying to imagine how physical art
> > works, like sculptures, and CC licenses could be somehow connected in
> > order to use e.g. a sculpture contest as a promotion event for CC...
> >
> > I know CC licenses do not apply to physical objects strictly speaking,
> > but I hope that somebody has lateral-thinking suggestions on  
> > this... :)
> 
> (I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.)
> 
> Sculptures are explicitly covered by the 1988 copyright act. So you  
> get copyright on sculptures. The Creative Commons licenses are  
> copyright licenses. So you can CC license a sculpture.
> 
> For permanent, public, outside sculpture, you can photograph/film/ 
> draw the work without infringing copyright (is this still the case?).  
> So presumably the license wouldn't cut in for a CC-licensed permanent  
> public sculpture.
> 
> But if you have a CC-licenses sculpture in a gallery, or it is being  
> displayed outside temporarily, and you draw or photograph it, the CC  
> license cuts in.
> 
> Also, if you exhibit the preparatory sketches or maquettes for the  
> sculpture under a sharealike CC license, recognisable derivatives of  
> those works (ie new sculptures) would fall under the license.
> 
> Sculpture remixing could be cool. Assemblage is certainly a form of  
> remixing.
> 
> - Rob.
> _______________________________________________
> Cc-uk mailing list
> Cc-uk AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-uk
> 
> 
I've been thinking about this one in the back of my head for a while now, and 
I too have some questions / thoughts about applying a CC license to physical 
works.

Indeed, sculpture is automatically covered by copyright law. In my 
experience, when dealing with something as overwhelmingly physical as 
sculpture, copyright enforcement tends to come into play when dealing with 
pictorial representation of the work, rather than derivative physical 
objects. It seems to me that any derivative sculptural works would be 
considered fair-use, as what is actually happening is that one artist is 
re-interpreting the others through sculptural expression. So, if you are 
talking about making other physical works, the CC is kind of a non-issue. 

Am I totally off-base on this? 

An example of this in action (pardon the pun) is the Fischli & Wiess "Der 
Lauf der Ding (The Way Things Go)" and the Honda advert "Cog". I know that 
Fischli Weiss were considering legal action over this at one point, but I 
nerver found out what the outcome was. I suspect that the artists simply 
realized they could not compete with the legal resources Honda has at their 
disposal. Does any one know of any other cases of non-pictorial copyright 
infringement involving a scuplture?

There are two situations that I can think of (off the top of my head) where 
is would not apply (pretty much what Rob stated above):

1. Using the original as a pattern for the mold --> cast process. Obviously a 
direct copy.

2. The instruction --> fabrication process. I think it would be pretty easy 
to consider the 'blueprint' of a fabricated work as its 'code'.

I would think that either of these scenarios would lend themselves rather 
nicely to a sculpture competition.

I whole heartedly agree with Tom's notion of 'creativity for all'. Regarding 
sculpture, sand and/or ice sculptures are a great way to get the idea of 
finished-object-as-temporary-condition across, and is something that almost 
everyone can identify with. (They're fun to make too.)

-Ben