After just 45 minutes of consideration, the jury came to the conclusion that the use of this artist’s work by the SJ Mercury News was “fair use”.

The work that was in question was a photo that was copyrighted by the artist and this news paper published the photo without the artist’s permission or consent. The photo was printed in a book that the paper reviewed. And they took the image internal to the book and published it with the book review in their paper. The copyright that went with the photo was removed when printed in the paper. And no mention of the photo or it’s subject matter was made in the review.

When the artist confronted the paper, they said that they were unwilling to compensate the artist and suggested that the artist “sue” them if he wanted to persue the matter. So he did just that!

All artists should be aware and concerned about the outcome of this case. The courts have sent a clear message that copyrights do not protect an artists published works.

This will most likely cause artists to be less willing to share their art
in a public medium such as books and websites on the Internet.

-lile

Webmaster of Art.Net
http://www.art.net
lile @ art . net

It is actually going on up in San Francisco this week up in the
9th Districk Court there.

Am hoping that good things come from this.

-lile

http://www.art.net/lile

On the topic of letters to the editor, I have started a website which looks for smart, original letters in national, regional and local newspapers:

The link is:
http://hudson.typepad.com/woodchuck

In my experience, the best insights and writing in any paper come from its readers.

If you have written or have seen an interesting letter to the editor, I’d like to hear about it… Please visit (and post ideas and comments) at the address above, or click my link.

Thanks!