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Egypt's MPs are expected to pass a law requiring royalties be paid whenever copies are made of museum pieces or ancient monuments such as the pyramids.
Original Article [news.bbc.co.uk]
Does anyone think this is actually going to fly?
The implications are very grave, what this is saying is that a company can't produce, for example, a sculpture of a pyramid without paying royalties to Egypt.
And I thought it was just Americans that were sue-happy. Huh, how about that.
BBC News, December 25, 2007
Maybe we can copyright Grandpa!? :o}...KF
Egypt's MPs are expected to pass a law requiring royalties be paid whenever copies are made of museum pieces or ancient monuments such as the pyramids.
That's ok we can just copy pyramids from, say, central/south America - Aztecs got them too. Wait can they sue Egyptians for infringement? Now that would be one interesting class action law suit :)
Mr Hawass said the law would apply to full-scale replicas of any object in any museum in Egypt."Commercial use" of ancient monuments like the pyramids or the sphinx would also be controlled, he said.
I don't think that life size replica's of the pyramids on the Giza plateau, or anywhere else for that matter, are going to be in the shops any time soon.
However, if a commercial enterprise decides to make exact copies of, say, Tutankhamun's famous golden mask, with the purpose of making profit, why shouldn't the owners of the original item receive some sort of financial benefit?
Perhaps they (the Egyptian authorities) would be better off creating some form of licensing arrangement whereby commercial enterprises could have the full endorsement and practical support of the authorities in return for monies changing hands. That way any replica's would become "official".
On the other hand, how can you copyright something that is, depending on who you believe, over 4,500 years old?
Mind you, if you have even the slightest interest in Egyptology you'll know that Zahi Hawass - the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities - has bit of a reputation as being a bit of a fruitcake!
Syzygy
why shouldn't the owners of the original item receive some sort of financial benefit?
Because they are not the original owners. The "original" owners are dust in the ground now. The country in which they were created may still "own" them, but ownership here is somewhat quasi in nature since these are unmovable objects any country could have technically become the owners it depended on who won what wars, political borders change.
Speaking of wars and conquest there are many countries that have plundered other countries of artifacts and art that the conquering country now "owns" but certainly weren't the original creators of it and therefore certainly aren't entitled to any type of copyrights either.
I just don't see any grounds that Egypt can stand on in this case for copyright protection.
Mr Hawass said the law would apply to full-scale replicas of any object in any museum in Egypt.
I don't think this applies to pyramids. They aren't in museums.
In reference to the comment by Mr. Hawass, If I were going to create replicas of things I guess I would do it at .99:1 scale.
:)
However, if a commercial enterprise decides to make exact copies of, say, Tutankhamun's famous golden mask, with the purpose of making profit, why shouldn't the owners of the original item receive some sort of financial benefit?
As said, they're not the "owners." There are many reproductions of this exact item - some of them awful, some of them very accurate (and Syzygy knows how this could affect me! ;-) )
. . . you'll know that Zahi Hawass - the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities - has bit of a reputation as being a bit of a fruitcake!
Yes but a very *powerful* fruitcake, and in every History Channel special related to Egypt. He is also instrumental in the current actions to get the Queen Nefertiti bust returned from Germany to Egypt. Just nutty enough to take it to the extreme.
I remember from high school geometry that a pyramid is a geometric shape
But if the image is made to "mimic" the look of the Egyptian pyramids, the distinction is pretty clear.
The article says "full sized replicas" but later it clouds the issue with statements about commercial use. Something tells me this is not going to be limited to full scale replicas, that would be too much of a loophole (make it 1/2" less than the original, we're safe.)
As said, they're not the "owners."
Sorry, I must have missed that bit. If not the Egyptian people or Egyptian state, then who does own Egyptian history? The History Channel, Zahi Hawass, NBC?
For our North American members - in copyright terms, who owns the White House? Can the Russians make postcards of it? What about the Cubans? How will you protect your rights?
If I copyright it and have the weight of governments on my side, how can you possibly hope to change that which has already been agreed to by those who head my committee and therefore are in a position to influence the rest of the world?
Syzygy
If I had to guess, I would say, no one. Antiquities are the property of humanity, not the particular country that currently occupies them. Ramping it up a bit, I plan on registering my copyrights for the view of the ridgeline behind my house - DIBS!
As for the example, I wouldn't be surprised if the U.S. would somehow attempt to establish copyrights on images of the White House, Grand Canyon, Crater Lake - but these would be equally ridiculous, millions of visitors capture these landmarks annually.
There was a discussion a few years back on copyrighting images of the Eiffel Tower at night - here [webmasterworld.com]. As preposterous as this (Egyptian antiquities) is, it could become a reality.
But surely the "lifetime plus seventy years" (or 120 years, for corporate ownership) period has passed since that time, and any possible copyright has expired...?
Eliz.
For example: While the Vatican could not copyright the Sistine Chapel nor others' historical photographs of it, they do strictly control photography rights of the RESTORED Sistine Chapel. Any new photography is then treated as a copyrighted work of the one company they sold rights to. This was how they funded the restoration. (More details at [theregister.co.uk...]
That approach probably does not apply to Egypt, unless they could somehow control photography. Also, images that exist today could continue to be reproduced, so unless they did a "restoration" akin to the Sistine Chapel's I'm not sure they'd gain anything.
There is one other possibility: I vaguely recall reading that unlike most countries, Italy does not treat photographs of artwork in public places as public domain. So if you take a photo of the David, you can't necessarily do what you like with it.
Potentially Egypt, as a sovereign nation, could do something similar or even more extreme but I don't see how they could retroactively cover existing photographs of antiquities -- or actual antiquities -- currently in foreign possession.
I'm pretty sure the Las Vegas Luxor is safe.
The law holds that no exact-scale replica can be made: For instance, if an object is two inches (five centimeters) tall, a product of the same dimensions cannot be made without permission. But a three-inch (six-centimeter) replica would be acceptable, Hawass said.
In this case, however, experts say that the Egyptian legislation would not fit within U.S. and European laws, meaning they could not be enforced abroad.
