Would a Japanese Company Sue Me for Similiar Art?

Have you always wondered what your rights are as an artist? There's no clear-cut textbook to consult—only we're here to aid. Katarina Feder, a vice president at Artists Rights Society , is answering questions of all sorts about what kind of command artists take—and don't have—over their work.

Exercise y'all have a query of your own? Email[email protected] and it may go answered in an upcoming article.

I read your answer to the question near museum-issued NFTs in concluding month's cavalcade  and I have a follow-upwardly. The British Museum isn't the but institution that owns a impress of Katsushika Hokusai's Great Moving ridge Off Kanagawa . What if you're one of the others and want to issue your own NFT based on it? What happens to the "uniqueness" of these items if all the owners start minting NFTs of the same piece of work?

I love when this column becomes a chat. Thank you, reader, for following up.

As well oft in the discussions of NFTs, we forget that the NF stands for "non-fungible," which is merely a fancy term for "unique." And what makes an NFT unique is not what it looks like. Rather, the thing that makes the NFT unique is its associated blockchain technology.

NFT pessimists often come to me baffled that someone spent n of $69 million on Beeple'due south Everydays: the First 5,000 Days , when they can display an image of said work for free. All they have to practise is become on the cyberspace, Google the image, and viola! Same thing, correct? Well, non really. What is unique about Beeple'due south original is the fact that the image sits on a "non-fungible" piece of code that can always be tracked thanks to the blockchain.

This concept is actually pretty radical and the potential implications for creators are well-nigh countless. Avails in the analogue world have value—some existent and some perceived. Value as ascribed past the fine art market place is almost entirely perceived. A bar of aureate is worth something in dollars. Unless you are an alchemist, yous cannot create golden. Art, on the other hand, is a dissimilar story.

At ARS, nosotros do a lot of licensing for T.V. and pic, but if you see a Picasso on Succession , it's well-nigh certainly fake. These fakes are and then good that we insist that they be sent to us for destruction after filming. In other words, they are basically identical to the original, but they are also without value, despite the originals being worth, yes, $69 1000000 and beyond. The value is not based on the object's advent; information technology is based on the fact that nosotros have designated it as the original.

Then, to bring information technology back to the Hokusai: The piece of work is out of copyright, then whatsoever museum that is in possession of the impress—or anyone who could download the prototype online, for that matter—could create their ain NFT of it. I'd wager that the British Museum'southward NFT would probably be worth more than ane that looks exactly the aforementioned, simply made by hackerdude666. Just this is a brave new world and I don't say that with any certainty. Both are "unique," just non to the blank eye.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks during an event to launch the new Tesla Model 10 Crossover SUV on September 29, 2015 in Fremont, California. (Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

I heard that Tesla is using copyright to force people to take downwardly videos on Twitter that evidence their autopilot feature taking command of the car and not stopping for pedestrians. While I incertitude that this is actually a copyright issue, I'm curious as to how they can argue this.

This isn't terribly art-related, but I suppose Jack Dorsey did accept an NFT, so…

If you aren't familiar with this situation (I wasn't before this question arrived), you can read up on it a little here . It's worth exploring in this column considering it involves the Digital Millennium Copyright Deed , which aims to protect copyright holders from online theft and is being used (i might say weaponized) adequately liberally these days.

Someone who doesn't know much about copyright might assume that these takedowns perchance protect some sort of proprietary information near Tesla's autopilot, but fifty-fifty if that were the instance, that isn't a copyright matter. Copyright law, in fact, expressly excludes copyright protection for "any idea, process, procedure, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the class in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied." I can't arraign YouTube and Twitter for existence proactive in the face of potential litigation, simply whatsoever is happening here has little to practise with copyright, even if copyright is being used equally an excuse.

If you can believe it, another controversial green automotive visitor, Nikola, has been using the exact same tactic to terminate people posting footage of 1 of their electric trucks rolling down a hill. According to the Financial Times , a Nikola spokesperson blamed YouTube'southward algorithms for the takedowns, while YouTube said that Nikola had flagged the alleged copyright violations themselves. The FT fifty-fifty notes that YouTube's copyright rules say that "in the U.Southward., works of commentary, criticism, research, education, or news reporting might be considered fair use, but it can depend on the situation," which suggests that they are as skeptical as I am that this is at all most copyright infringement.

Copyright is ultimately about the protection of homo expressions that are truly original. These two companies would practice well to recollect that, especially since they're both named after the exact same person .

Johanna Fateman of Le Tigre performs in support of the bands "TKO" release at the San Jose Civic Auditorium on July 12, 2005 in San Jose, California. (Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)

Imagine the pain I felt in my aging Gen X heart when I read that the women behind Le Tigre are being sued by the guy who wrote the original vocal "Who Put the Bomp (In the Bomp, Bomp Bomp)," famously sampled in "Deceptacon." Who's gonna sue them adjacent, Megatron? How is this possible?

It's true that such a lawsuit could bargain a major blow to bars in the East Hamlet that have PBR/shot specials. Simply if you lot're lucky enough to be then young that you didn't understand virtually of this question, allow me to requite to a primer. Kathleen Hanna and Johanna Fateman's Le Tigre was a late-'90s feminist pop rock/electronic band whose "Deceptacon" is described in their complaint as their "most popular vocal," streamed 69 million times on Spotify solitary.

Their complaint? Aye, you had it slightly wrong in your original question, my aging hipster friend. Information technology is Hanna and Fateman who are suing the Bomper in question, 82-year-old Barry Mann of Beverly Hills, over his "frivolous just persistent legal threats." "Nosotros don't want to sue anyone, let alone another creative person," they told Pitchfork in a argument, "but we have no choice at this betoken. We just want Mann to go out united states alone."

In this not-lawyer's opinion, their reference to his song is such a good instance of "transformative utilize" that information technology harkens back to the instance from which the term originates.

The concept of "transformative utilise," of course , dates to a 1994 case involving a 2LiveCrew song, " Pretty Woman ," that had the rap group updating Roy Orbison's "Oh Pretty Woman." The vocal really had picayune in common with Orbison'south song—aside from the sampled guitar lick— just what made the song truly "transformative" in the eyes of Supreme Court Justice David Souter, who wrote the opinion , was the Crew'south method of "substituting anticipated lyrics with shocking ones" to show "how bland and bland the Orbison vocal" is.

Hanna and Fateman argue that they've done the same, citing music writer Sasha Geffen, who wrote that LeTigre took a "heteronormative love vocal" and "turn[ed] information technology into a rallying weep for feminine independence." Mann's song begins, ironically enough, with him saying, "I'd like to thank the guy who wrote the song that made my baby fall in love with me" and so, of form, asking, "Who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? Who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong?"

Le Tigre'due south version, the band's complaint argues, asks the opposite of Isle of man's question: "Who took the bomp from the bomp-a-lomp-a-lomp? Who took the ram from the rama-lama-ding-dong?"

Hanna and Fateman go on to accuse Isle of mann of appropriating his ain lyrics from Black doo-wop groups. But even without that argument, they accept a very strong instance. Commenting on something, or making a parody of information technology, is almost always off-white use. Yet, nosotros wait forward to the resolution of this case if but to determine the verbal whereabouts of both the ram and the bomp.

Don Felder of The Eagles performs "Hotel California" at the ASCAP Foundation's 11th annual "We Write The Songs" result at the Library of Congress on May 21, 2019 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images)

I saw that musicians are currently lobbying the Copyright Royalty Board for higher streaming fees. What is the Copyright Royalty Board and might visual artists somehow grade one?

Actually, it's music publishers who are lobbying the Copyright Royalty Board, and the stardom is important because what they do is different from what you lot do as an artist. Merely don't become besides disappointed about that because while the name sounds good, y'all probably wouldn't desire such a board as role of your professional life.

The Copyright Royalty Board is a federal three-estimate panel that is technically a branch of the Library of Congress. It was established in 2004, but equally this Wall Street Journal story points out, its origins lie in a 1909 act that targeted the makers of player piano rolls, whom Congress felt had an unfair sway over gimmicky listening. To take away this perceived monopoly, they stipulated that such publishers must license their intellectual property, with the toll determined by the government.

These days, the board sets the compulsory rates that Spotify, Apple tree, Pandora, and other streamers must pay to music publishers and songwriters (as opposed to performers or record labels) when users stream their songs. Equally with any flat fee, these royalties are a picayune thin. One of the numbers being thrown around for the increment i s $0.0015 per stream, much more than than they're receiving right now.

I'one thousand non certain what an equivalent for visual artists would look like, since the songwriter and performer roles are the same, in our world. If y'all're looking for an organization that makes certain you become paid whatever time your work appears somewhere exterior a museum or gallery, that'due south more than or less what we do at ARS. Simply we negotiate a unique price for each work and try to get our artists the best deal possible. Hither'southward hoping the songwriters of America are able to get their due someday equally well!

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Source: https://news.artnet.com/opinion/know-rights-november-2040760

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