Comments on: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater has a terrible photo policy. http://www.jamiesanford.com/2009/05/19/frank-lloyd-wrights-fallingwater-has-a-terrible-photo-policy/ Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:07:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Joseph http://www.jamiesanford.com/2009/05/19/frank-lloyd-wrights-fallingwater-has-a-terrible-photo-policy/comment-page-1/#comment-2318 Joseph Tue, 19 May 2009 16:09:48 +0000 http://www.jamiesanford.com/?p=461#comment-2318 I think that this is simply a ploy by the "Western Pennsylvania Conservancy" to collect more money. I can (sort of) understand they have "rights" (not legal mind you) to control photography inside the building (they can illegally snatch your camera (grand theft in your case, I suspect), you can call them on that at which point they can probably show you the door and say that you are officially "trespassing"). As far as the outside of the building is concerned, if you can photograph it from any land that is not private property (so you don't get kicked off for trespassing), there is nothing they can do to stop you just as celebrities can do NOTHING to stop paparazzi from photographing them in while they are out in public places. It is probably not even illegal to photograph this location FROM their private property as you didn't enter into a legally valid agreement (see the court argument below... you can not (even willingly) sign away rights... so, I can sign a contract for someone to kill me and they are STILL committing murder because the act is illegal my consent or not). Anywhere you are not "trespassing" should be fair game because no one can hold a copyright over light photons reflecting off their building and hitting a CCD sensor on your camera. In fact, prohibiting photography of copyrighted works is probably not even illegal (as it is not a derivative work): http://www.photoattorney.com/2008/03/court-finds-opposite-photographs-of.html Of course, take all this with a grain of sand... I am not a lawyer (nor do I play one on TV or did I even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night) and it seems that even if I was, this legal issue is still somewhat murky. I think that this is simply a ploy by the “Western Pennsylvania Conservancy” to collect more money. I can (sort of) understand they have “rights” (not legal mind you) to control photography inside the building (they can illegally snatch your camera (grand theft in your case, I suspect), you can call them on that at which point they can probably show you the door and say that you are officially “trespassing”).

As far as the outside of the building is concerned, if you can photograph it from any land that is not private property (so you don’t get kicked off for trespassing), there is nothing they can do to stop you just as celebrities can do NOTHING to stop paparazzi from photographing them in while they are out in public places. It is probably not even illegal to photograph this location FROM their private property as you didn’t enter into a legally valid agreement (see the court argument below… you can not (even willingly) sign away rights… so, I can sign a contract for someone to kill me and they are STILL committing murder because the act is illegal my consent or not).

Anywhere you are not “trespassing” should be fair game because no one can hold a copyright over light photons reflecting off their building and hitting a CCD sensor on your camera.

In fact, prohibiting photography of copyrighted works is probably not even illegal (as it is not a derivative work):

http://www.photoattorney.com/2008/03/court-finds-opposite-photographs-of.html

Of course, take all this with a grain of sand… I am not a lawyer (nor do I play one on TV or did I even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night) and it seems that even if I was, this legal issue is still somewhat murky.

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