Rights Of Artists Research Articles

Front Matter

Next article FreeFront MatterPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreCover: Mickalene Thomas, Sleep: Deux femmes noires, 2012. Rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel on wood panel, 108 × 240 inches. Courtesy of the artist, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, and Artists Rights Society, New York.Emerging from a discourse that combines art-historical, political, and pop-cultural references, and through the lens of black and female identity, I aim to blur the distinctions between object and subject, concrete and abstract, real and imaginary. Indeed, the modes through which culture serves to shape perception across social, spatial, and ideological platforms are fundamental to my investigations. Shaped through portraiture, my explorations introduce and complicate notions of femininity, beauty, and sexuality and challenge common aesthetic representations of women. Through painting, photography, collage, and installation, my strategies include appropriation, whereby formal and conceptual artistic iconology is deconstructed and repurposed in order to reevaluate its context. Here, my study of French impressionism, European modernism, and pop art plays a formative influence—wherein pioneers including Bearden, Neel, Matisse, Manet, and Warhol continue to activate my interest and approach. The subjects that populate my images are similarly influential; however, their significance is often intimate or personal. Family, friends, and lovers feature throughout my oeuvre, serving as powerful figures that characterize the subjective, and often otherworldly, propositions I envision.© 2012 by Mickalene Thomast. Permission to reprint may be obtained only from the artist. Next article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Signs Volume 42, Number 1Autumn 2016Pleasure and Danger: Sexual Freedom and Feminism in the Twenty-First Century Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/687478 © 2016 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Polskie prawo autorskie po dwudziestu latach obowiązywania ustawy z 4 lutego 1994 r.

Ustawa o prawie autorskim i prawach pokrewnych z 4 lutego 1994 r. powstała w nowych warunkach ustrojowych, krótko po pierwszym okresie transformacji gospodarczo-politycznej oraz w przeddzień przystąpienia przez Polskę do Unii Europejskiej. Przesądzało to konieczność jej dostosowania do nowych założeń ustrojowych oraz do standardów unijnychCechą charakterystyczną tej ustawy jest nawiązanie do bogatej polskiej tradycji szeroko ujętej ochrony autorskiej przyjętej na gruncie międzywojennej ustawy o prawie autorskim z 1926 r. Nawiązanie to odnosiło się przede wszystkim do ujęcia przedmiotu ochrony autorskiej oraz treści prawa autorskiego. Obejmuje ono autorskie prawa osobiste, nieograniczone w czasie, ujęte jako uniwersalne i niezbywalne oraz realizowane, po śmierci twórcy, przez jego bliskich. Na prawo autorskie składają się również autorskie prawa majątkowe, powstające w następstwie faktu stworzenia utworu. Prawa majątkowe ujęte zostały w nawiązaniu do treści prawa własności i służą twórcy na wszystkich znanych i powstałych w przyszłości polach eksploatacji, ujęte erga omnes, z uwzględnieniem konsekwencji niematerialnego charakteru utworu. Obejmują one wyłączność korzystania i rozporządzania utworem wszelkimi sposobami, o ile ustawa nie wprowadziła ograniczeń na rzecz dozwolonego użytku. Ochrona ta ma charakter czasowy; początkowo trwała 50 lat post mortem auctoris, obecnie – 70 lat. Cechą nowej regulacji jest wyłączenie pełnej rozporządzalności autorskimi prawami majątkowymi. W określonych przypadkach twórcy służy niezbywalne prawo do wynagrodzenia oraz przymusowe pośrednictwo organizacji zbiorowego zarządzania prawami autorskimi lub pokrewnymi. Novum jest uregulowanie zbiorowego zarządzania prawami autorskimi, w tym przyjęcie systemu zatwierdzania tabel wynagrodzeń dochodzonych przez organizację zbiorowego zarządzania (OZZ) w ramach zbiorowego zarządzania, a także powołanie Komisji Prawa Autorskiego z zadaniem zatwierdzania tabel wynagrodzeń przedkładanych przez OZZ. Znamienną cechą ustawy jest wprowadzenie szeroko ujętej odpowiedzialności za naruszenie praw autorskich, zarówno osobistych, jak i majątkowych, środkami cywilnymi i karnymi.Ustawa była wielokrotnie nowelizowana. W odróżnieniu jednak od gruntownych prac nad tekstem pierwotnym i szeroko zakrojonymi pracami nad ustawą w pierwszym okresie jej obowiązywania, poczynając od roku 2003, proces legislacyjny, którego efektem były kolejne nowelizacje, w tym ostatnia z 2010, nasuwa szereg zastrzeżeń co do zachowania proporcjonalności, legislacyjnej poprawności i społecznej sprawiedliwości, zwłaszcza w należytym zabezpieczeniu praw twórców i artystów, jako strony słabszej na rynku autorskim. Również ostatnie projekty zmian uzasadniają poważne zastrzeżenia, co do zachowania niezbędnej równowagi, jak również co do legislacyjnej poprawności. Znajduje to wyraz w wadliwej regulacji problematyki audiowizualnej, błędów i luk w regulacji dotyczącej działania Komisji Prawa Autorskiego, systemu zatwierdzania tabel wynagrodzeń, a w szczególności zasad szczególnych dotyczących opłat rekompensujących skutki kopiowania utworów w ramach własnego użytku osobistego.Istotne zastrzeżenia budzą ostatnio opublikowane propozycje zmian, w szczególności dotyczące dzieł tzw. osieroconych. Szczególnie dotkliwe jest niepodejmowania w pracach legislacyjnych zagadnień spornych pomiędzy organizacjami użytkowników i twórców oraz artystów z obszarów od wielu lat wymagających regulacji, takich jak problematyka tantiem audiowizualnych oraz reemisji.

White Crucifixion and Listening to the Cockerel: Marc Chagall.

In White Crucifixion, Chagall documents the deliberate targetingof Jews inNaziGermany thatwas theprelude to theHolocaust (Figure 1). Chagall uses religious imagerywhenhedepicts Christ on the Cross as the central figure, not as the Christian savior but as a Jewishmartyr.2 Thus, Chagall brings the Crucifixion to bear on contemporary Jewish tragedy. He starkly depicts Christ’s martyrdom as a Jew whose sacrifice speaks to the unspeakable suffering of Jews brought about by Nazi ideology. Chagall was reacting to events that took place in 1938, a year that marked the renewed persecution of Jews inGermany. It beganwith the registrationandmarkingof Jewishbusinessesandwas followedby the forceduseof thenames Abraham and Sarah for men and women and the required stamping of passports with a “J.” Concurrently that June and again in August, synagogues were destroyed in Munich and Nuremberg. The destruction reached its climax on the night of November 9, 1938, Kristallnacht (Crystal Night, or Night of BrokenGlass),whenmore than7000Jewish-ownedstoresand buildings had their windows broken, when more than 1000 synagoguesweredesecrated,andwhenmore than30 000Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps, and at least 90 were killed. Historically, Kristallnacht marked the beginning of the Holocaust. InWhite Crucifixion, Chagall documents the desecration of 1938 and calls the world to witness. In this painting, light shinesdown fromabove to illuminatebothChrist on theCross and amenorah (a symbol of the Jewish faith) at the foot of the Cross. Both the head of Jesus and themenorah (an ornamentalmenorahwith6candles, 1 ofwhich is extinguished) are surrounded by a halo of light. To signify his Jewishness, instead ofa typical loincloth, Jesuswearsa fringedJewishprayer shawl with 2 black stripes across it. Rather than a crown of thorns, hewears awhite head cloth. The Roman’s traditional derogatory Latin inscription INRI (“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”) appearsabovehishead.Beneath it is theAramaic (a language spoken by Jews) translation Yeshu HaNotzri Malcha D'Yehudai in Hebrew characters. According to Ziva Amishai-Maisels,2 Chagall’s Aramaic spelling was a play on words because HaNotzri is more usuallyused tomean“theChristian,” rather thaneither “theNazarene” or “the man from Nazareth.”2(p139) In the Book of Acts, Nazorean is used to refer to a follower of Jesus (ie, a Christian rather than an inhabitant of a city), and in modern Hebrew, Notzrim is theword forChristian.Thus,Chagall’sAramaicdesignation indicateshis recognitionof Jesus’ importance toboth Christians and Jews. Hovering above the Cross are 4 alarmed figures inmourning (3 biblical patriarchs and 1matriarch)who express anguish at the tumult beneath them. Jesus’ left hand reaches out toward a pillaged and burning synagogue. Flames leapout todestroy theTorahark.Remnants of the pillaging are shown—a torn prayer book, an overturned chair, a lamp, a menorah, and, sadly, a burning Torah scroll. In the lower right side, a “Wandering Jew” (emblematic of the fate of the Jewish nation) is carrying a sack on his back, seeking toescape.Threebearded Jewishmenare shown in the lower left side.Onewipesawayhis tears.Anotherwears anunreadable sign (originally with the words Ich bin Jude [I am a Jew]). A third man holds a rescued Torah scroll tightly in his arms. To the far left, houses are burning. An unburied body lies among tombstones in a cemetery.Dispiritedvillagers sit in the snow; an unused fiddle lies on the ground beside them. Others seek to escape in an immobile, overcrowded boat with a Marc Chagall (1887-1985), French.White Crucifixion, 1938. Oil on canvas, 154.6 × 140 cm (607⁄8 × 551⁄16 in). Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Gift of Alfred S. Alschuler. © 2014 Artists Rights Society, New York, NY/ADAGP, Paris, France.

5 Pointz down: the New York District Court ruling on ‘Graffiti Mecca’

This is a case note on a New York District Court decision regarding the moral rights of graffiti artists.

The Protection of Literary and Artistic Rights without Formalities; A Comparative Study in French, Iranian and Shiite Laws

مالکیت ادبی و هنری حقی است که آفریننده اثر بر تراوشات ذهنی و فکری خویش دارد. در نظام حقوقی فرانسه از آثار اصیل ادبی و هنری به صرف خلق اثر و تجلی خارجی آن، حمایت می‌گردد و نه تنها شکل تبلور اثر بی‌اهمیت است، بلکه هیچ‌گونه تشریفاتی نیز برای حمایت از اثر لازم نیست. در مواردی نیز که از ثبت و تودیع نسخه یا نسخی از اثر سخن به میان آمده، برای آن نقش اثباتی در نظر گرفته شده است. این در حالی است که در نظام حقوقی ایران علاوه بر خلق و تجلی خارجی اثر ادبی و هنری، حمایت از اثر بسته به مورد، منوط به تشریفاتی هم‌چون انتشار برای نخستین‌بار در ایران و درج علائم مخصوص می‌باشد. درخصوص نرم‌افزارهای رایانه‌ای نیز حمایت قضایی از اثر منوط به اخذ تأییدیه فنی گردیده است. توجه به مبانی فقهی مسئله به‌ویژه بنای عقلا و عموم ادله‌ای که دلالت بر لزوم احترام و حمایت از اموال و مالکیت‌ها می‌نماید و نیز توجه به برخی آثار نامطلوب وابسته نمودن حمایت از آثار ادبی و هنری به رعایت تشریفات، حمایت بدون تشریفات از آثار مزبور را ایجاب می‌نماید. البته شناسایی نقش اثباتی برای تشریفات مزبور می‌تواند مفید باشد.

Commercializing the Digital Canvas

Over the past two decades, a series of trends in constitutional and intellectual property have significantly reshaped the impact of traditional intellectual property laws for the art community. Attribution of a work to the artist and protection of the integrity of a work from alternation are historical bedrocks of artistic protections, but those protections have been diminished for digital artists. The Visual Artists Rights Act excludes digital works from the definition of works of visual art, thus excluding these works from rights of attribution and integrity. At the time, rights of attribution and integrity were seen as quasi-trademark rights, and artists were protected under the Lanham Act. Since then, however, the Supreme Court has extended copyright’s preemption over trademark, undermining an artist’s ability to have non-contractual protections for the artist’s identity and integrity in a work. In addition, a second trend within the digital environment has created additional tensions for artists whose works include celebrities, athletes, or other members of the public. The Supreme Court has made the clear determination that video games are entitled to complete First Amendment protection, placing those works in the same category as film, publishing, and works of art. Despite this free speech protection to the medium, a series of inconsistent decisions among state and federal courts have made unclear when the use of a person’s likeness in a video game—or video art instillation—would constitute a violation of the person’s rights of publicity.

CAUTION-Contains Extremely Offensive Material: <em>David Wojnarowicz V. American Family Association</em>, The Visual Artists Rights Act, and A Proposal To Expand Fair Use To Include Artists’ Moral-Rights

CAUTION-Contains Extremely Offensive Material: <em>David Wojnarowicz V. American Family Association</em>, The Visual Artists Rights Act, and A Proposal To Expand Fair Use To Include Artists’ Moral-Rights

Survival and Change of Mahoree Tradition in Cambodian Society

Problem statement: Mahoree, is an important music ensemble in Cambodia since the Angkorean period. Mahoree formerly belonged to the court or noble Cambodian families. Mahoree is very popular and practiced by ordinary people and plays an important role in Cambodian society. Mahoree is a culture of the community and the Cambodian society and can be preserved and promoted by community participation. Approach: This research was a qualitative research study. The research data was derived from document analysis and field research carried out between June, 2009-July, 2011. The instrument used included a basic survey forms, observations forms, interviews forms and focus-group discussions. The sampling group was made up of 27 key informants, 22 casual informants and 18 general informants. The research area includes Phnom Penh, Battambang province and Siem Reab province. This research aimed to 1. To study factors that affects the survival and changes of Mahoree ensemble in Cambodian society 2. To create guidelines for the conservation and promotion of Mahoree ensembles in Cambodia. Results: The changes affecting Mahoree come from internal and external influences of modern Cambodian society. External influence contributed significantly to the changes of Mahoree in Cambodian Society, such as modifying the playing methods, change of clothes, use of instruments from different cultures to mix and make the performance more appealing to modern audiences. The promotion and encouragement of Mahoree music instruments can be done by increasing the centers for learning Mahoree songs, learning about Mahoree music, the nature of the Mahoree music, the type of Mahoree music, the benefits of Mahoree, the song used in the rituals that require Mahoree and intellectual property rights and care for Mahoree artists. Encourage the singing of the Mahoree in music ensembles, promoting new songs, publishing Mahoree music with modern recording and musical notes, distribution of the songs, inspect and maintain the intellectual property rights of artists. Create a variety of teaching formats, promotion of youth music in various locations, promotion of learning Mahoree in state organizations and create Mahoree manual for teachers. Promote the importance of Mahoree instruments and production and distribution of teaching materials in various formats and encourage visitors to seek out knowledge about music. Conclusion: Factors that affected the survival and change of Mahoree ensemble in Cambodian society were learning and inherited of Mahoree culture from the past to the present and the signifying of the role of Mahoree in Cambodia. The guidelines for conservation and promotion or encouragement of Mahoree can be carried out in as many aspects as possible through community participation and by cooperation of government, private sectors and communities.

Protecting Artistic Vandalism: On Graffiti and Copyright Law

Does copyright law protect graffiti? Preserving graffiti art and protecting it against unauthorized reproductions are growing concerns in the art scene. This article argues that copyright law covers graffiti works because copyright is neutral towards works created by illegal means. As copyright is a right over the intangible aspect of the work only, it does not exclude works created by illegal means. This is true even under an incentive-based copyright system such as the United States Copyright Act: copyright does not give incentives to commit illegal acts; it just gives incentives to create valuable artistic works, regardless of the means with which the work is created.This article analyzes the challenges that artists face in enforcing their rights in their graffiti, under the Copyright Act and the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA). Graffiti offers a unique case study to understand copyright's nature and scope.

De kortstondige lotgevallen van de PEN-clubs tijdens het interbellum in Spanje - Een geschiedenis van politieke en regionale polarisatie

De kortstondige lotgevallen van de PEN-clubs tijdens het interbellum in Spanje - Een geschiedenis van politieke en regionale polarisatie

Human Rights Law as a Device to Protect Copyright

Copyright is initially protection of original creation of human intellect but nowadays it become indispensable for a civilised society as human being need somehow someone’s creations at every moment of life. The present article endeavour to take up the balancing exercise1 between Copyright and Human Rights at a time when the spreading of copyright throughout the world in the wake of the TRIPs and the WIPO Treaties of 1996 should be paralleled by more respect for the right of journalists to investigate and the right of artists and intellectuals and indeed all other human beings to express themselves. Moreover aiming to achieve respect in favour of general comment on ICESCR under Article 15(1)(c), “the right of everyone to benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.” This suggests the outlines of an emerging human rights framework for copyright. Analysis of the human rights framework for collective administration of copyright is the ultimate of the present work.

Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art Foundation v. Christoph Büchel: An Appellate Perspective on the Visual Artists Rights Act

When the U.S. Congress passed the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) in 1990, no legislator really anticipated that courts would be applying the act to art installations that were only half-finished. But this was the very challenge that the U.S. Appellate Court for the First Circuit faced in Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art Foundation, Inc. v. Christoph Büchel. Deliberating over a failed football-field-sized art installation wryly entitled “Training Ground for Democracy,” the appellate court was asked to determine whether VARA protected Swiss artist Büchel's moral rights in his half-finished work that if completed would have given viewers “training to be an immigrant, training to vote, protest, and revolt, training to loot, training [in] iconoclasm, training to join a political rally, training to be the objects of propaganda, training to be interrogated and detained and to be tried or to judge, training to reconstruct a disaster, training to be in conditions of suspended law, and training various other social and political behaviors.”

Magritte, Cladel, and <em>The Tomb of the Wrestlers</em>: Roses, Daggers, and Love in Interarts Discourse

Magritte, Cladel, and The Tomb of the Wrestlers: Roses, Daggers, and Love in Interarts Discourse Ben Stoltzfus (bio) “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,” said Gertrude Stein (187),1 and we might be tempted to name René Magritte’s painting A Rose Is a Rose, were it not for the fact that this image (see figure 1) is not a rose, any more than Magritte’s painting of a pipe, The Treachery of Images (La Trahison des images) (1929), is a pipe. His caption, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” amply demonstrates that the signifier is not the signified. In his book This Is Not a Pipe (1968), Michel Foucault devotes some fifty pages to proving that the iconic representation of a pipe is not the same thing as smoking it. Indeed, in our time, no informed person believes in the transparency of the sign. The rose is not a rose because Magritte has named his picture The Tomb of the Wrestlers (Le Tombeau des lutteurs) (1960), a title he borrowed from Léon Cladel’s nineteenth-century novel entitled Ompdrailles, le-tombeau-des-lutteurs (1879). This is an unusual and arresting title for a painting that depicts a red rose inside a room, a rose whose petals are enclosed by the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. Moreover, the painting was not meant to illustrate the novel any more than Cladel’s text is an intentional ekphrastic representation of the painting. [End Page 173] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. René Magritte, The Tomb of the Wrestlers, 1960, oil on canvas. © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. The novel was published in 1879, long before Magritte painted his picture, and he said that he had forgotten what the novel was about.2 Clearly, the novel is not a rhetorical representation of the painting, but roses in Magritte’s art, despite his memory lapse, are, in many ways, an ekphrastic refraction of Cladel’s work because Ompdrailles’ unrequited love and the tragedy of stabbing himself in the heart with a dagger are recurring themes (images) that appear in Magritte’s paintings, such as The Blow to the Heart (Le Coup au coeur) (1952), Flame Rekindled (Retour de flamme) (1943), and Memory (La Mémoire) (1948) (see figures 2, 3, and 4). Magritte has always asserted that his titles, despite appearances, fit his pictures perfectly.3 And we know that he always chose his titles very carefully, sometimes with the help of friends, listing alternate ones until the most suitable title presented itself.4 Representation, that is, pictorial fidelity to the original image, was the last thing on his mind. Because the title is [End Page 174] nonmimetic, and also the “best” title, we conclude that Magritte was appealing to a subconscious dimension in the observer’s lexicon, a dimension that he has labeled “mysterious.”5 The painting does not illustrate the novel and vice-versa, but there is a symbiotic relationship between the two—an obscure equivalency that explains Magritte’s choices. I will be pursuing this equivalency throughout my essay. Meanwhile, the observer must, inevitably, ask him- or herself why Magritte chose this particular title. Magritte says that “the title of a painting is an image made of words” (492; my translation), and his titles, more often than not, are enigmatic and defamiliarizing. They propose a different image than the one in the picture—an image composed of objects, people, or animals—an image that usually contradicts the object(s) in the painting. After the initial astonishment, the observer, if he or she is sufficiently curious, will perhaps strive to solve the puzzle by bridging the gap between the image in the title and the image in the painting. It must already be obvious that the juxtaposition of distant objects—using Lautréamont’s paradigmatic image of the umbrella and the sewing machine on a dissecting table—was part and parcel of the surrealists’ aesthetic strategy, one that Pierre Reverdy and André Breton advocated so eloquently (1969): The image is a pure creation of the spirit. It cannot be born of a comparison but of the bringing together of two realities which...

Introduction: Snapshots of Rights Discourse

The collection of papers presented in this volume offers snapshots of how rights are debated and employed publically to reshape legal and political relations at the beginning of the twenty-first century. They explore how rights are used to challenge the state of affairs by individuals and groups who seek justice, and the strategies devised to defy the rights by those who wish to recast the social and political order. This volume discusses rights, firstly, in relation to actual events and issues faced by policymakers, courts, international agencies, or ordinary people. These range from the demands of minority groups living in the West to freely practice their culture and/or religion, to the threat of terrorism, the regulation of asylum rights, the investor’s rights to disclosure and the rights of artists to freedom of expression. Secondly, rights discourse is examined in relation to attempts to redefine the form and content of rights, for example, by banning the right to wear religious symbols in public institutions or detaining terrorism suspects without trial. Thirdly, rights discourse is explored in connection with the attempts to develop new notions of rights, such as ‘human security’, which can more effectively respond to the challenges of late modern societies. Finally, the statuses of rights in sociological theory and socio-legal research are briefly discussed and analysed.

Theme et VARAations: Why the Visual Artists Rights Act Should Not Protect Works-In-Progress

Many countries recognize rights, which allow artists some level of control of their art after it is sold, for example by guaranteeing that their work’s authorship is acknowledged and that it cannot be modified without their permission. In contrast to Europe, where they have long existed, these have only been broadly recognized in American law since 1990, when Congress enacted the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA). Although other parts of VARA have received extensive scholarly attention, one question that has been essentially overlooked is whether VARA applies to unfinished works of art. This is surprising, because it has been central in some of the most well-known VARA decisions. Until very recently, those opinions that could have weighed in on the issue have also avoided it. But given how often the issue arises, courts could not avoid it forever, and in late January of 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit decided in Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art v. Buchel, No. 08-2199, 2010 WL 297834 (1st Cir. Jan 27, 2010), that VARA fully applies to works-in-progress, from the first stroke of the artist’s brush onward. Although some authors have rejected the doctrine of rights wholesale, that is most decidedly not the aim of this paper. Instead, its central argument is that VARA does not (and should not) apply to any works-in-progress, regardless of whether these works would (or should) be protected in finished form. Although this implies that that MassMoCA was wrongly decided, the argument is much broader. Indeed, the MassMoCA opinion’s cursory analysis belies the fact that the question of works-in-progress is very complex. Accordingly, this paper examines VARA’s statutory history, contemporary art theory, and the economic underpinning of the unique American moral-rights framework and concludes that they all suggest no VARA protection for works-in-progress. Further, this reading is (counterintuitively) most consistent with the statute’s aim to protect artists’ moral rights. Unlike with completed art, rights in unfinished works are protected existing legal remedies.

'To Every Cow its Calf, to Every Book its Copy': Copyright and Illegal Downloading after EMI (Ireland) Ltd and Ors v. Eircom Ltd [2010] IEHC 108.

In his judgment delivered on April 16 2010, Mr. Justice Charleton ruled that the graduated, “three-strikes” policy which could result in an internet subscriber being cut-off because of persistent infringements of copyright law online was lawful. As a result, Eircom, as the Defendant internet service provider (ISP) and four major record companies (EMI Records (Ireland) Ltd., Universal, Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Ireland) Ltd and Warner Music (Ireland) Ltd.) who involved in formulating this three-strikes policy can lawfully proceed to implement their settlement agreement. The case, which commenced in March 2008, is the first in Ireland which has targeted ISPs rather than individual illegal down-loaders as it is the conduit through which illegal downloading has been facilitated and the property rights of record companies and artists being violated. (Originally, the four companies wanted orders under the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 restraining Eircom from infringing copyright by facilitating (as an ISP), the illegal downloading of copyright material without consent.

Derek: Portrait of a saint

ABSTRACTThe focus of this article is Isaac Julien's 2008 documentary Derek, which celebrates the life and work of film-maker, artist and gay rights activist Derek Jarman. The film interweaves archival footage, segments from Jarman's films and the musings of his friend, Tilda Swinton, with footage from an extended interview with Jarman filmed shortly before his death. The film divided critics upon its release. While some warmed to its affectionate portrait of its subject, others complained that it offered too little insight into Jarman's work, and was a strangely conventional film about a notably unconventional figure. This article places the film within Julien's oeuvre and argues that it is indeed one of his more conventional exercises in what he terms ‘poetic documentary’, for at the centre of the work is an unreconciled tension between the desire to give a straightforward account of Jarman's life and achievements, and Julien's more experimental impulses. The article briefly addresses the complexities of Jarman's work and character and his own flirtations with poetic documentary before concluding that Derek offers a hagiographic view of Jarman's life in the original sense of the term: that is, Julien offers Jarman up, not unproblematically, as a kind of modern-day secular saint.

Moral Rights: Diagnosis and Rehabilitation

The United States offers some of the strongest intellectual property laws in the world. Why then does U.S. law grant such weak moral rights protection? The answer is not simply political apathy. Rather, it stems from a long-standing perception that moral rights conflict with fundamental American cultural, historical, and legal traditions. The first part of this manuscript presents a brief history of moral rights law. The next part examines the varying forces that have contributed to the poor reception of moral rights in the United States. After an examination of the limited protection of the Visual Artists Rights Act, the paper shows that moral rights are more compatible with American socio-legal theory than currently believed. This article concludes that the more harmoniously moral rights are viewed, the more likely courts will interpret them less restrictively and Congress will offer less resistance to expanding moral rights protections.

Dead on the Vine: Living and Conceptual Art and Vara

The Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA), arriving in the wake of U.S. adherence to the Berne Convention, provides moral rights of integrity and attribution to artists who have created certain copyrightable physical works of visual art. Since - and before - the time of VARA’s enactment, however, many artists have been working with genres and media to produce art that is not comfortably accommodated within the scope of protected works contemplated by VARA. An increasing number of recent works of Conceptual and Appropriationist Art raise questions about fixation and original expression that are required for copyrightability that, in turn, is required for protection under VARA. This article discusses the uncomfortable fit of VARA and many contemporary works of art, and particularly those that incorporate to a significant extent living works in their natural state. The discussion focuses on the recent decision in a dispute involving a VARA claim in a living landscape (Chapman Kelley v. Chicago Park District, N.D. Ill., 2008). It concludes that works of art in which nature and chance play a dominant role are Conceptual works in which the artist’s contribution is limited to ideas that should not be protected by copyright or VARA.

The Unacknowledged Symbolic Function of Government Programs: A Legal Brief in the Supreme Court Case National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley

A primary, but typically unacknowledged, function of government action - whether it be new laws, the inauguration of new leaders, the establishment of new agencies, or the funding allocated to existing agencies - is to show what the people approve of. Government praise is an asset that the government can bestow wholly apart from the concurrent bestowing of government money - although the most meaningful and effective praise usually carries a government check along with the government's seal of approval. A legal brief addressing this subject was a brief the author prepared for filing in the Supreme Court case National Endowment for the Arts v. Karen Finley, et al., in 1998. Regrettably, advocates of the free speech rights of certain artists worked to prevent the filing of this brief, and the points made never appeared in the ultimate Supreme Court disposition of the case. Because the election of Barack Obama, the first President of African-American ancestry, is such a powerful symbolic act in favor of racial reconciliation and the dissipation of ancient prejudices, the symbolic role of government action, and the manner in which government is used by the people to shape the social norms of the people, is once again presented front-and-center to students of government. Thus it is possible that the points made in the suppressed amicus brief (which has never before been published) may prove useful to students of government today. This paper includes an introductory section to frame the issue in the context of today and to relate the history of the brief and how it came not to be filed.