Fire Alarm Companies

Last year we wrote about the absolutely ridiculous situation in which an artist Jack Mackie, is suing a photographer, Mike Hipple, for copyright infringement. The details of the case were pretty crazy. Mackie had created a piece Public Artwork with Public Funds, putting teaching dance steps to the pavement on a sidewalk in Seattle. Hipple not photograph the whole thing. Instead, he took a photo of someone in a couple of the tracks, and there were a few others around him. It 's hard to see how to tell someone that was not fair use. It 's transformative, and it certainly does not hurt the market for the original artwork. The problem was that Hipple put the image on a stock photo site to sell, and Mackie seems to think, copyright covers a hell of a lot more than it does. The other weird thing: after receiving a takedown letter came after the image below ... Mackie but still sued.

Hipple was planning to fight the lawsuit, but just like Andy Baio / Jay Maisel situation, it seems that Hipple realized that it was better to settle than risk huge statutory damages. The statement about the settlement seems pretty clearly done with the consent of the Mackie 's attorneys, and one wonders what else is going on behind the scenes. Tragically, unlike Baio appears Hipple not have to get permission to pass on the details of the settlement. That 's really a shame because this is the kind of information people need to know.

Worse still, Mackie response to the settlement is nothing less than shocking was, and contains some obviously false statements about the copyright:

Artists hold copyright to their work, period. The Federal Law that states this was well vetted and argued before becoming law. This law comes with strict standards that must be met to gain copyright. I met all of these standards. My copyright is secure meaning it comes with protections and it comes with controls. Artists are the only people who get to say how images of their work will be used.

That 's just not true. The artists are not the only people who say such images are used to get from their work. That 's the whole point of fair use, what it seems Mackie denied. This is another reason why this type of settlements, while understandable, are so tragic. They reinforce this kind of ignorant claims of copyright holders who want to deny fair use. Mackie continued:

I do not want my work as part of a coffee company 's advertising campaign. I do not want to be my work as part of a sales pitch for condos on Broadway. I do not want my work associated with banksters ... All of which I have had to do. I want to see my work as intended and in the setting for which it was created - Seattle 's sidewalk on Capitol Hill, Broadway. I will not know who might think, it uses a cool idea to rotate the image for her latest fancy appropriate.

What do you wantand what the law allows may be two totally different things. Look, I don't want have to spend time exposing your ignorance of the copyright. But the mean doesn 't, the law allows me to complain about it. Moreover, nothing holds the copyright to \ do "associations." It doesn 't do with whether you like someone to do your work in a certain way. If it 's fair use, it absolutely can you work this way. Their own desires have nothing to do with it.

It was with delight that I took the news of Tom Petty sending cease and desist order to Michelle Bachmann for the appropriation of his work without his permission.

With "joy" and some additional total ignorance about the nature of copyright in this country ... As we recently noted, Tom Petty has no legal foothold here. That 's because his music is licensed for public performance with ASCAP or BMI, and if the places where Bachmann plays these melodies, has their ASCAP / BMI licenses in order (as they almost surely), he 's has nothing to stand. That 's the way U.S. copyright protected works, when it comes to musical performances licensed to such music. But Mackie has apparently no interest in actually understand how the copyright law, but rather his mythical version of it 's a kind of "moral rights", which are not present in U.S. copyright law, no matter how much Mackie dances around and pretends they are.

Andy Baio between the situation and the situation Mike Hipple, it would be great if people started to realize what \ a terrible setup copyright's statutory damages provisions. They allow artists such as Mackie and Maisel, to shake down other artists about the work that other artists believe is fair use. The risk of a statutory damages award is too high, and so these artists are forced to submit, to pay and to stifle art. It seems so, statutory damages provisions to do the exact opposite of the stated intentions of copyright to promote progress, doesn 't it?

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