Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Case in point:

Sometime last year, Auckland sculptor John Radford tried to take legal action against Hallensteins (a clothing company) because they took a picture of one of his sculptures in Western park and put it on a tee-shirt to sell for a profit. This was wrong indeed, and John led a crowd of people to the store on Queen street to protest with signs that said things like "Hallensteins=Philistines" and such the like. Unfortunately, what John didn't realise, and what IS IT ART tried to tell him was that the image used was
a) taken in the public domain and
b) not a photo that He had taken.
Therefore He had no legal comeback what-so-ever. To paraphrase the man himself, He was 'Up shit creek'.

The internet by it's very definition is public domain, probably the ultimate public domain. IS IT ART expresses opinions based on the experience of going to thousands of art shows over the years, carefully cultivating liver cancer and an appreciation of what we think good art is.

So we'll say whatever we like. Because that's what we're used to. If you don't like it (like how we don't like most of the crap we see just about every day) and you don't want to tell us something we don't already know about art, then hit the little button at the very top right hand corner. We are not Hallensteins, we are a group of non-profit individuals.

Thank you.

5 Complaints:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Agree that artists need to understand that when they display their art in whatever manner they choose, they have to accept public comment on it. Whether the critique is positive or negative. That is what Art is all about.

11:41 AM  
Blogger Jagd Kunst said...

I concur. At least that's what IS IT ART is (mostly all) about.

7:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Man, your ass is grass. The mighty John Radford will smash your puny intelligensia asunder as he strides the planet on his pony called 'self righetous artists deserve more respect from dirty corporate types'. Long name for a pony I know, but hell, he's an artist.

10:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Read the New Zealand Copyright Act 1994

sect 73
sect 9

see what you think then

4:14 PM  
Blogger Rich said...

I was interested to see what had happened on this case. A ggogle for "john radford hallensteins" doesn't find anything recent.

I suspect that once he actually got to preparing the case his lawyer read s.73 of the Copyright Act and advised him accordingly. I can't see any wiggle room - the copyright in photographs of sculptures belongs to the photographer.

12:04 PM  

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