This is just another nail in the coffin of freedom, for sure. Little things like will add up, eventually, and signal the demise of anything NOT owned by a major corporation. Frightening.

Well I live in Las Vegas, what are they going ot do to our eiffel tower here that lights up every night. Do French Copyright laws have affect here in the states?

"it isn't all bad news for tourists"

Bullshit. Just because they might not choose to pursue certain copyright "violaters" doesn't give tourists a get out of jail free card for what they might decided next year.

the prohibition to photograph the eiffel tower by night does not apply to amateurs who take pictures strictly for personal purposes; art. 122-5 of the French Copyright Code states:

Once a work has been disclosed, the author may not prohibit:
2° Copies or reproductions reserved strictly for the private use of the copier and not intended for collective use, with the exception of copies of works of art to be used for purposes identical with those for which the original work was created ...

seems pretty clear to me.

Once a work has been disclosed, the author may not prohibit:
2° Copies or reproductions reserved strictly for the private use of the copier and not intended for collective use, with the exception of copies of works of art to be used for purposes identical with those for which the original work was created ...

Sounds like posting your photos on the Internet for others to view isn't allowed...

How long until the French surrender the copyright to the Germans? Then whine to the US to help save it.

Ooooh, the scary might of the French copyright office.

Just kidding (or am I...)

Good question about the Vegas replica; I started wondering about that just after I posted the original item. The law about publishing nighttime Eiffel photos does apply in the US (because of int'l treaties) though how the Vegas replica fits into that puzzle I'm not sure.

You'll note that the post doesn't say it is illegal to 'take' pictures, but merely to 'publish' them. Whether the word 'publish' is applicable to photos on personal Web sites is, I believe, still up for debate. It is pretty clear that right now the SNTE isn't interested in preventing this type of publication of the image (given the amount of uncontested nighttime images of the tower that one can find on the Web).

I discovered this a couple years aog when my night time photos of the eifel tower had to be removed from a stock photography site (for-profit site).

Vegas copy si soooo lame. I had the idea, only chinese could have such a taste of copying others momnuments.
But let's face it, If i want to see the eiffel tower, I want the real one, not that no historical replica.

Mark: I understand it the same way as Chris. Personal use is indeed okay, but posting images to a privately-owned, non-commercial but publicly-accessible website *is* still publishing, and individuals could theoretically be prosecuted if SNTE chose to.

Sorry for Stephane Dieu: the Supreme Court of Appeal (in french: Cour de Cassation) established in on May 7 2004 that " the owner of a thing does not have an exclusive right on the image of this thing ". From now on, the owner must prove that the exploitation of the image should cause a extraordinary disorder or damage to him.

I call bullshit. At least in Australia, images of a building (or part of a building) which can be seen from a public place have a copyright exemption.

SNTE are probably a bunch of cocksuckers (what four letter organisation isn't?) trying to scam some money until someone beats up on them in court.

This is much older than 2003. I believe what is copyrighted is the illumination as artistic expression. It should fall under the Berne convention which protects literary and artistic works. Doesn't seem too strange to me.

Photographer's are crazy-fanatic about copyrighting the use of their own work, but there are some who cry foul when others attempt same.

To the person who said "Do French Copyright laws have affect here in the states?", the answer is YES, as per Berne convention (one international convention that the USA has actually signed).

According to Bert Krage's Photographers' Rights guide, "residential and commercial buildings" may 'almost always be photographed lawfully'. That 'almost' may be the kicker, and it may be that this general rule can be overridden by specific copyright rules.

Here in New York, the historic Flatiron Building is registered as a trademark of Newmark & Co. Real Estate (who also own the building I'm currently sitting in), and they have successfully sued Flatiron Partners for use of an image of the building. (Flatiron Partners settled out of court). Then there's the lone cypress tree at Pebble Beach, which is also now copyrighted.

I have a nasty feeling that this is the wave of the future, and that more and more distinctive buildings will be 'copyrighted' in this way. Once the precedent is thoroughly set with regard to new buildings, it will move on to historic monuments and natural features. Or, come to that, any other artifact: want to publish that picture of a cop beating a protestor? Sorry, the uniform worn by the policeman is the copyrighted property of the NYPD ...

I hope this particular enclosure of the commons doesn't go ahead, as I've made a small amount of money in the past from selling my photographs of various buildings or places that I can quite easily see being retrospectively placed under 'copyright'. Widespread 'copyrighting' of buildings or monuments would close off that source of revenue pretty decisively, and might even leave my website looking rather empty. I'm just glad that my pictures of the Eiffel Tower are from before 2003, so that I don't have to pay SNTE their twelve pieces of silver.

angus, what if I took a photo of your photo (such that your photo was the prominent subject) and made a small amount of money from it? would you mind, terribly?

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Idiots...this is not something that will be easy to enforce, and only makes them look like blundering fools.

Devil's Advocate,

A better question would be if it were a violation of copyright to take a photo of a hugely blown up photograph or ad on the side of a building.

The point is that the building is out in public, isn't it?

And how prominent does the Eiffel have to be in the photo? Can I take a picture of the Paris skyline at night and publish it?

I applaud the efforts of the SNTE to "reign in" undesirable/unflattering portraits of the Eiffel Tower at night. It's a shame really -- for both Paris and the larger world community -- that this ruling had to come after the two low-budget independent films "Eiffel Tower At Night Discreetly Crammed Up My Ass" and "A Movie Consisting Of Five Thousand Photographic Stills Of The Eiffel Tower At Night Juxtaposed With Short Movie Segments Of Diseased People Screaming While On Fire Falling From Said Tower Created Via The Artistry Of The Special Effects Department At This Studio."

Instead of all your pissing and moaning, I suggest you get off your butts and do something about it. It was, after all, your elected representatives who changed the copyright law to protect the interests of Disney stockholders and Cole Porter heirs. Write your senators and representatives today!

Enough with the French bashing. It's so yesterday. I'm sure I could come up with a trite, hackneyed quote from some overquoted tome about logs, eyes and splinters, but why bother.

Oh, and by the way, I was there when they first illuminated the "2000" and thought it was kind of festive. Now, 10+ years on, I think the party is over and they should take it down. Of course, most American's seem incapable of turning of their blazing twinkie lights for months and months after x-mas, so there's probably no hope.

Au revoir,

Mookey

When was the Eiffel Tower replica in Las Vegas first illuminated? If this was before 2003, then SNTE are clearly committing copyright infringement.

Just a minute,

You expect me to believe that French authorities processed the paperwork in time for the copyright to take effect, just as the lighting was attached?

We are talking about French bureacracy here, right?

Sacre bleu, it's a miracle!

"To the person who said "Do French Copyright laws have affect here in the states?", the answer is YES, as per Berne convention (one international convention that the USA has actually signed)."

Sorry... it US law would recognize that the work is copyrighted, but French law, copyright or otherwise, DOES NOT APPLY.

It isn't just the Eiffel Tower, http://www.stockindustry.org/resources/specialreleases.html has a wholelist of things you can't take pictures of including the Hollywood Signand a tree called the lone cypress in Pebble Beach, CA.

According to http://www.midrealism.paxtonfineart.com/Pages/Articlecoastweekly.html,it might actually be legal to take pictures of the lone cypress but noartists have dared to stand up to the company which owns the copyrightand have settled out of court (not that I'm blame them...)

I wonder what will become of these rules when blind people start gettingelectronic eyes (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.09/vision.html)which happen to be able to record images? Who is going to tell a blindperson they have to turn off their camera?

Artificial eyes for blind people, when truly developed, will pose quite a conundrum, as they do record images for mental processing. What does the Berne Convention has to say about that?

Sorry for the dupes. Need an artificial finger to process that sticky Enter key!

I don't think they had to fill in any paperwork to get the design copyrighted: last time I checked, according to French law, architectural designs were considered like any other works of art, and automatically copyrighted for so many years. You can't publish a picture of the Louvre Pyramid, for instance, or the architect could sue you. (But, of course, anybody who went to Paris has a picture of the Pyramid on their gallery.) And, yes, that includes illumination designs.
The only exemption is if the architectural work isn't the main subject of the picture: e.g., a picture of yourself in front of the Tower at night is perfectly legal.

So it's really about design, not ownership. Although I recall someone (or some entity, rather) successfully suing over an advertising campaign that used a picture of... a f***ing extinct volcano.
IIRC they managed to pull this off by (ab)using the law that protects the right to privacy. The same law that forbids publishing a recognizable picture of someone walking on the street, and can also be used to protect recognizable domiciles (and that's where it applies to the volcano, even though nobody was living there).

France is not the ideal country for walking around with a camera.

(Actually, when I grew up, my mother always told me that, when you took a picture of someone on the street, they were allowed to rip the filmroll from your camera. Well, turns out they aren't, but you can't publish the picture in any way.)

Mookey, (You're not from New Jersey, are you? No, that was with an "-ie".)

They had removed the twinkling lights -- after the awful attempt to make them blue. They then put the white ones back up due to popular demand. I live within sight of those lights. My wife wishes they had stopped when they were ahead; I still shout out "spark-ly tower! spark-ly tower!" every time I see them. The best thing from year 1999 (when the whole lighting system was overhauled, if I recall correctly) are the search beacons. Very cool those are. Sometimes I feel like I could just reach up to illuminate my hand.

PS: Check your calendar.

dunh dunh dunh!!

Hmm. If they follow through with the oft-rumored threat to launch advertisements into space, will it become illegal to publish unauthorized pictures of the night sky?

Sounds like a lawyer's wet dream. I can see an argument that the image of the Tower was in the public domain, and that by installing a copyrighted design on it the company has committed an act of theft. Or that the image of the Tower is not the copyrighted work, and the only infringement would be if, say, the Vegas Tower (or Blackpool Tower even) implemented the exact same lighting design.

We need a rich photographer to sue their asses.

Property is theft.
"Intellectual property" is grand theft and larceny.
Eat shit and die, suckers.

Oh yeah? Let them sue this.

http://tinyurl.com/4j4qw

Antti

you say the company is "charged with maintaining the tower', and copyrighted something they put on it? Isn't that kinda like, I dunno, claiming false ownership?

Oh well, as quoted above, to sue me for publishing a picture, they'd have to prove "the image should cause a extraordinary disorder or damage to him."

So freaks who think being offensive for sake of "art" are fair game, though I would not be.

To: VonSkippy. About your 02-03-05 comment: You idiot!
What an open mind you have!!! Shows how much you know about the history of the world in which you live!!!!
This kind of comment irritates me: why don't you tell that to my uncle whose dad was sent to a concentration camp for being part of the French Resistance???

I think you people are all worked up over nothing. Or possibly over the wrong thing.

'Copyright' automatically exists on any created work. You don't have to register it, sign anything, or notify anybody.

But copyright is pretty weak. All it says, essentially, is that nobody can sell your work as their own. That doesn't mean that nobody can ever sell the Eiffel Tower: it does mean that nobody can take your architectural design and sell it without your permission.

And for buildings, nobody can prohibit you from taking photographs from a public location. You can also sell them.

What is at issue here is 'trademark', which is completely different. You DO have to register a trademark, and it isn't always easy. You also must defend your trademark. You DO have the right to prevent anyone from doing any form of business using your trademark and that is the legal theory, I believe, on which this is based.

In this case, it is the lighting design that is trademarked, just like the lone cypress is trademarked (NOT copyrighted). In the case of the lone cypress, I don't believe that there is a place where you can take a photo of it from a public place, so it's clear that if you try to sell any image of it, it's a violation of trademark. It isn't nearly as clear in the case of the Tower, where it seems that you probably couldn't sell a nighttime image of the Tower without permission.

I live in the US. Next George Bush will want to copyright Mount Rushmore.

OK so we all all photoshop the eiffeltower out of all our pictures and never show it again to anyone.

Who cares about such "laws"? Frenchman does but all countries have their own laws and for example I can publish Eiffel-shots as much as I want. Those french laws don't affect in Finland and thats good.

That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read..this week.

I am sure there are thousands of amateur photographs on web sites. It's too impossible to maintain a law like this.

The law isn't that you cannot publish a photograph of the Eiffel Tower at night, but that you cannot publish a photograph of the Eiffel Tower at night for commercial use. That means essentially that you cannot use images of the Eiffel Tower at night for advertising or in your product brochure. If you sell it as a piece of art, that's fine. If you publish it on your website, that's fine. Now if your website happens to advertise your photography business, you start approaching a very fuzzy gray line.