Copyright and Fair Use

Photograph Source:

Flight Stop, 2016, remundo, Eaton Centre, Toronto.

On November 29th Jennifer Weymark, the archivist at the Oshawa Museum came to talk to our Journalism Fundamentals class about copyright, fair use, and how this connects to journalism and mass media.

While in this blog post I could explain all of the different aspects copyright holds and how it is properly used, I’d like to focus on a very intriguing story that occurred between an artist and The Eaton Centre in 1982, this is a story Jennifer Weymark briefly talked about on Wednesday.

I (for some reason) find the topic of copyright very interesting. Copyright, according to Canada’s Copyright Act is “the sole right to produce or reproduce a work or any substantial part thereof in public, or, if the work is unpublished, to publish the work or any substantial part thereof.”

Now if you understood any of what I quoted above, great, but if not I’ve got you covered. Copyright is really just the exclusive legal right given to an individual to publish material in different forms, and to authorize others to do the same.

With you hopefully at least grasping the idea of copyright, here’s the story of the Canadian artist Michael Snow.

In 1979, Snow was commissioned to create a sculpture for the Eaton Centre. The sculpture was made to have 60 separate Canadian geese figures, each represented in different sizes and in different motions of flight.

The sculpture was named “Flight Stop”, and then was purchased by the Eaton Centre. With Snow supervising, the sculpture was installed along with a plaque that gave him the rights to his art. This sculpture soon became a focal point of the Centre.

The happiness and love for the artwork was abruptly ended for a short period of time when the 1982 marketing director for the Eaton Centre wanted to give the geese some festive pep during the holiday season. The brilliant vision the marketing director had was for the geese to be decorated with large red ribbons around their necks.

The problem with the geese looking festive for the holidays? The Eaton Centre didn’t think to consult Snow. When Snow saw the ribbons, he was not happy whatsoever.

Snow thought these additions “jarred the harmony of his naturalistic composition, altered its basic character and purpose, and ultimately affected his artistic reputation”.

The Eaton Centre didn’t act on his request to remove the bows off of all 60 geese because they didn’t think it was a problem.

In early December 1982, Snow filed an injunction against the Eaton Centre, asking them to remove the red ribbons. The complaint was founded on section 12 (7) of the Copyright Act 1970, which states:

  Independently of the author’s copyright, and even after assignment, either wholly or partially, of the said copyright, the author has the right to claim authorship of the work, as well as the right to restrain any distortion, mutilation or other modification of the work that would be prejudicial to his honour or reputation.

In the end, the Eaton Centre was made to remove the ribbons as the judge agreed they “distorted” the works integrity.

When Jennifer Weymark brought this story up in class, I found I wanted to know more because I never realized copyright was more than protecting ones’ work from being copied. I didn’t realize that copyright protected the initial meaning and integrity of ones’ work.

I like that copyright can protect an artist’s work from being portrayed in a way they don’t agree with, this is important to keep the work honest and having their true integrity.