IP is one of those areas where programmers like to imagine the law is a function definition which provides clear answers. And aside from obvious stuff like selling bootleg copies of a movie - it doesn't.

Whether the pattern of light hitting a building is copyrightable is likely to be an under-explored area of case law. E.g. in the UK it would probably have to be a work of 'artistic craftsmanship' which is not defined in the statute. But the Eiffel tower is in France. So now you have two slightly differing sets of copyright law.

In the end many IP cases come down to bluffing because the actual class of question has never been settled by a judge.

On the other hand you have other cases like Banksy today loosing a case on trademarking one of his paintings. Which was dumb because he'd have got further with copyright infringement.

> many IP cases come down to bluffing

That's quite insightful in understanding how the concept of intellectual property works in practice. I see, it's about making a claim to convince the other party of its legal ownership.

Whether the actual legality of the claim is proven in court or not, it may not matter if the claim is convincing enough, or too costly to contest.

I do feel like there are situations where you're creating artwork as a public good, and the artist should lose copyrights in exchange for the notoriety/impact/visibility associated with the project. Things like massive buildings, lighting the Eiffle tower, or creating Happy Birthday should fall under that.

It might sound unfair, but as an artist, creating a iconic piece of art that will be around for generations should really be worth more than money. Perhaps governments around the world could set up a fund to compensate/honor artists who achieve this.

This sounds like you’re saying if you’re an artist, and you do a really good job, you shouldn’t get paid and should lose the rights to your work. That’s quite a strange concept.

A) I literally mentioned compensation in my post.

B) Lots of people find the current rules to be unfair. An enterprising fellow could build a massive structure in NYC and claim royalty rights over any photograph which may contain it.

You might be a-okay with that, but I take it to the extreme and think about what would happen if every building owner in NYC asserted copyrights over images of their building. Then every photo taken in the city would be subject to royalty/licensing requirements. YouTube's content scanners would automatically flag any video with shots of the city, etc.

Exactly. The government should forcibly open source software projects and set up a fund to honour their creators if it decides those projects are a public good.

IIRC it's that the lights are a nightly "performance". Absurd, of course.

Why absurd? they are performance that just happen to be occurring frequently. If a Broadway musical is played every night, does it stop being a musical?

The question is, Does a recording of it stop being private property if it's performed in public?

Says the company running the tower...

There is some French law on works of art and photos of them being prohibited. I once posted a picture of a World War I memorial at Verdun to wikipedia and it was removed for violating said French law.

I mean, I can see a case for copyrighting such a setup as an art-piece. Although it's still silly if used for anything other than discouraging others from making money off it (e.g. selling photos).

> I mean, I can see a case for copyrighting such a setup as an art-piece.

I must admit I don't. I cannot bring myself to see the Eiffel tower being copyrighted at night as anything but absurd, even for selling photos.

Not everything needs to be profitable or have a price tag. I think we should agree upfront as a society that you shouldn't expect to make money from photos of the exterior of your public building.

I just don't understand how you can restrict photography of something that's in the public view. I'd expect that while most public sculptures etc are copyrighted, this restricts reproductions of the sculptures themselves, not images of them. The creative work here is the lighting system, and I don't feel an image of that actually copies that.

So if someone monkeys with the lighting fixtures at night, such that they weren't in their copyrighted configuration... I am clearly not a lawyer.

If someone monkeyed with the lighting fixtures, they would be creating a derivative work of the fixtures and if they do it without a license from the copyright holder, they would be violating the copyright.

I guess it's OK if I take a picture during daytime and then alter it digitally to look as if it was taken at night.

if it's really an issue of copyright (I don't know this myself but just going with the theory) then it would probably depend on how closely your digital alterations match the actual lighting. If you did it to match/copy the copyrighted lighting, by looking at the actual lighting (in person with your laptop, from a picture, from memory), it would violate copyright just as much. If I re-type the words of a copyrighted text, it doesn't mean I haven't violated copyright.

> If I re-type the words of a copyrighted text, it doesn't mean I haven't violated copyright.

Copyrights are hard. Even if you look at public domain works like Sherlock Holmes, whose original stories are in the public domain, you can run into issues by giving him personality traits that are associated with derivative works that are still under copyright.

You can even use pictures taken at night, just not during the light show that happens every hour or whatever

It was actually used for advertising a long time ago. Big old "CITROËN" on it. Really gaudy, but a trademark nonetheless, so it does put us into some sort of IP territory.