We don't let just anyone into the Schlock Printers Guild you know! Maintaining crooked, soft, mushy, muddy bland prints, with blocked highlights, and just the right amount of dust, for print after print after print, that takes a (low) level of effort and care that few people can maintain!
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Danziger Gallery Exhibits "AI-generated color version" of Ansel Adams' "Moonrise, Hernadez, New Mexico" at AIPAD
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We don't let just anyone into the Schlock Printers Guild you know! Maintaining crooked, soft, mushy, muddy bland prints, with blocked highlights, and just the right amount of dust, for print after print after print, that takes a (low) level of effort and care that few people can maintain!
Fact? This made me laugh. Statistics and Damned.....
I also made up a statistic. 99.9% of the world couldn't care less or don't even know. From the same research institute.
When an item is in the public domain (assuming this is the case) it means that the people of the United States own it. Seems like a lot of people are ok with giving up what everybody owns.
How many of the hundreds,? or thousands other world wide iconic photographs are also sacrosanct?
How did Ansel Adams become a 20th century Joseph Smith?
Well, titles aside (both assigned by others and self-assigned), it seems a master printer is generally willing to show their work so folks can judge for themselves where a schlock printer, or one with an unverifiable reputation, primarily self-promotes and doesn't show their work.
Exactly
You're correct. That would be plagiarism. However, Danziger didn't claim this as his own. He announced that he used a BW Adams image in the public domain and had AI create a colorized version and printed different sizes by his printer. I believe that Danziger can now copyright his colorization prints as a derivative, although it won't matter because it won't stop other people from using the original to (legally) make their own version.
Here come the colorized versions on teacups. You'll soon be able to buy your wife a set of 12 crock ware with Adams' pictures. Tacky? Sure. This is what public domain does. It allows everyone to modify and add to previous creations to expand our scientific and artistic knowledge and experience, all a public good.
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Probably more. But their opinions also don't matter. After all, their opinions don't matter in well over 99.9% of issues.
Despite the fact that 300 million plus of them may own the copyright of the photograph.
I see that a work was copyrighted in the US copyright office seen here
publicrecords.copyright.gov
Full Title:
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico :[no.] 1-SW-30.
Registration Number:
VA0000209098
Date:
1985-03-26
Type of Work:
Visual Material
Claimant:
Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust
This we would have been under the 1976 act which, here, applies to works not already in the public domain. So we would need to know if the original copyright was extended, under the rules of the 1909 act.
But the 1909 act says-
If no notice of copyright was affixed to a work and the work was "published" in a legal sense, the 1909 Act provided no copyright protection and the work became part of the public domain.
So was there such a note affixed to all the copies?
If so, the copyright lasted to 1997 and so the 1976 act would apply. apropos, the 1985 copyright application above.
This would put the term of protection to 75 years after publication to 2017. or 50 years after Adams death which would be 2034.
If this is so then the photograph falls under the Sonny Bono act.
It all goes back to whether the prints and publications between 1942 and 1976 all had a copyright affixed to the work. Most particularly I am thinking the U.S. Camera Annual 1943. Anybody have a copy?
U.S. Copyright Office Public Records System
publicrecords.copyright.gov
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico :[no.] 1-SW-30.
Registration Number:
VA0000209098
Date:
1985-03-26
Type of Work:
Visual Material
Claimant:
Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust
This we would have been under the 1976 act which, here, applies to works not already in the public domain. So we would need to know if the original copyright was extended, under the rules of the 1909 act.
But the 1909 act says-
If no notice of copyright was affixed to a work and the work was "published" in a legal sense, the 1909 Act provided no copyright protection and the work became part of the public domain.
So was there such a note affixed to all the copies?
If so, the copyright lasted to 1997 and so the 1976 act would apply. apropos, the 1985 copyright application above.
This would put the term of protection to 75 years after publication to 2017. or 50 years after Adams death which would be 2034.
If this is so then the photograph falls under the Sonny Bono act.
It all goes back to whether the prints and publications between 1942 and 1976 all had a copyright affixed to the work. Most particularly I am thinking the U.S. Camera Annual 1943. Anybody have a copy?
I see that a work was copyrighted in the US copyright office seen here
Full Title:U.S. Copyright Office Public Records System
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico :[no.] 1-SW-30.
Registration Number:
VA0000209098
Date:
1985-03-26
Type of Work:
Visual Material
Claimant:
Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust
This we would have been under the 1976 act which, here, applies to works not already in the public domain. So we would need to know if the original copyright was extended, under the rules of the 1909 act.
But the 1909 act says-
If no notice of copyright was affixed to a work and the work was "published" in a legal sense, the 1909 Act provided no copyright protection and the work became part of the public domain.
So was there such a note affixed to all the copies?
If so, the copyright lasted to 1997 and so the 1976 act would apply. apropos, the 1985 copyright application above.
This would put the term of protection to 75 years after publication to 2017. or 50 years after Adams death which would be 2034.
If this is so then the photograph falls under the Sonny Bono act.
It all goes back to whether the prints and publications between 1942 and 1976 all had a copyright affixed to the work. Most particularly I am thinking the U.S. Camera Annual 1943. Anybody have a copy?
The link you provided gives the full description of the copyright. Notice below it was for an updated print, not the original negative. So the question is, does the Danziger colorized version use this copyrighted print or another that is or is not copyrighted?
Copyright Catalog
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico :[no.] 1-SW-30.
- Registration Number / Date
VA0000209098 / 1985-03-26 - Previous Registration
Appl. identifies negative as preexisting material. - Type of Work
Visual Material - Title
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico :[no.] 1-SW-30. - Date of Creation
1980 - Date of Publication
1980-11-19 - Copyright Claimant
- Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust
- Authorship on Application
- enlargement and print of photographic negative: Ansel Adams.
- Basis of Claim
- New Matter: unique reinterpretation of negative into printed enlargement.
- Edition
- Museum set ed.
- Notes
Cataloged from appl. only. - Names
Interesting that it acknowledges " a unique new reinterpretation" as separate from the negative.
A new print has to be a unique new reinterpretation to get a new copyright. What's interesting is that the Trust filed for the copyright claiming it is a reinterpretation. Is it? Or does the patent department just allow the filing and the reinterpretation validity would be settled later in a lawsuit?
The other question, assuming Danziger used a patented print, is whether colorization of a copyrighted print or negative is considered enough to be a reinterpretation. Of course, if the copyright on the print or negative he used ended, then he can do what he wants.
Various things about the color version suggest the AI cobbled it together from a variety of Adams's B&W print versions. Can they also get around this by claiming the AI version is based on digital representations of the prints rather than actual prints? I'm no law person but herewith forthwith pursuant to fat jack v hortense.
I would assume Danziger used an unprotected print to create his colorized print. I checked and the negative is locked up in Tucson, Arizona at the Center for Creative Photography. Scholars can get access for research, but they have to get permission from the Trust for access. High resolution raw digital files are not freely distributed for public printing. SO it would be legally risky for anyone to use the negative files to create their own work even if the copyright on the negative has lapsed. It could be considered regular theft.
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It is obvious that a later version of the print was scanned, not the original neg. The question would revolve around whether the copyright pertaining to AA's limited edition "museum set" overlaps the balance as well. Even if it doesn't, it sends a clear signal that the image itself rightly belongs to AA. But if he did scan and repurpose a museum set example, it would clearly be a copyright violation. And if the Trust chooses to pursue a lawsuit, it's ultimately not going to be what the lawyers on each side say, but a jury. Danzinger might not be as safe as he assumes.
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- Alan Edward Klein
- Deleted
Neither the trust nor legal experts claim copyright protection. the Trust let renewal lapse. The Trust claims ethical violations.
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Let the lawyers figure of the copyright nuances of the contest, if it comes to that. But there are other premises a lawsuit could go forward on. I've seen people sue their neighbors over a cat crossing the fence. In this case, it might not be worth their time, because the incident alone might tarnish Danzinger's reputation, and provide a sufficient spanking and warning to others, given all the noise already. But he's the cat who brazenly dared cross the fence, completely apart from even common courtesy asking. Now let's see if the Rottweiler woke up or not.
As a dealer, he seems to gravitate toward big PS composite inkjet images a lot. They can be intriguing and certainly worthy of high-end decor. I don't classify any of that as actual photography myself, but more as computer painting using separately photographed components. But if he wishes to join that company himself, a merely colorized work by someone else entirely, and moreover, with the assistance of Ai, would seem to be an embarrassing bellyflop. There's nothing particularly creative about it.
As a dealer, he seems to gravitate toward big PS composite inkjet images a lot. They can be intriguing and certainly worthy of high-end decor. I don't classify any of that as actual photography myself, but more as computer painting using separately photographed components. But if he wishes to join that company himself, a merely colorized work by someone else entirely, and moreover, with the assistance of Ai, would seem to be an embarrassing bellyflop. There's nothing particularly creative about it.
As a real former lawyer has said before, it’s all about the damages. Seems like the damages are small, if not insignificant, and any possible punitive damages could be even smaller.
According to AI, Danziger sold one print for $10000. The cats out of the bag. Pretty soon, we're gonna be seeing Moonrise on teacups.
This got good ol' Ansel in the news. Attention makes money.
@Alan Edward Klein -- no one cares if Moonrise is on a mug. That's not what's troubling about what's happened here. The whole copyright discussion doesn't matter, either. The idea that someone can use AI to take an existing artwork and change it enough to claim it's distinct from the original (distinct enough to sell) is the actual issue. The issue of copyright is really only significant for whoever claims it.
Yes, both Danzinger and the Ansel Adams Publishing Trust got some attention. Who do you think is making the most money from this event: Danzinger Gallery, AAPT, or good ol' Ansel?
MattKing
Moderator
My bet is, ultimately, the Ansel Trust will gain the most. They have the greatest catalogue and will benefit from the attention. Even the people who approve of the Danzinger print would not consider the Ansel Trust "wrong".
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