The italian village of San Quirico d'Orcia is copyrighted

The italian village of San Quirico d'Orcia, in Tuscany, is now copyrighted.

Here is a translation of the Italian article:
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San d'Orcia Qurico put the copyright on itself. His celebrated glance, starting from the crown of cypress trees, now risen to an emblem of quiet rural absolute, can no longer be used to advertise mattresses and mineral industries, and even corporations that produce GMOs, as it happened in the past: who will film must request permission 15 days in advance and, if this is granted, will be in place, however, the obligation to "acknowledge the source" of beauty that will be put on display, San Qurico same.

The city council of the town of Siena, Unesco World Heritage, with the valley of which has been, since 2004, has approved the rules last week, everything is already operational. The 2,500 inhabitants of the village located on the Via Cassia, between Pienza, Montalcino and Monte Amiata, were sad to see the exploitation of images of their carpet birthplace: the church of Vilatela, the hill of Podere Belvedere and above the cypress trees. "We saw them everywhere - says the Head of Tourism, Christian Pilgrims - Posteitaliane by a manufacturer of mattresses, a well-known brand of mineral water that Umbria has built over the whole packaging is in German hotels that advertised them as the 'view' hotel ...".

The most prominent case in 2007, when Monsanto, the multinational GM seed, used the iconic vision, aware of its potential evocative of the bucolic world perfect, that the production of GM crops was far from being able to represent. The administration sent a letter of formal notice to the company, which stopped using the image. But this was the straw breaks the camel's capable of and now, after 4 years and for a change of leadership of the country (now there's the PD) has reached the decision that puts an end to the exploitation of "deception" of the natural and architectural beauty San Quirico.

"This is not want to penalize anyone - says councilor for productive activities Mauro Taddei, promoter of the initiative - there is only the desire to protect the territory from the unfair use, as sometimes happened, seeing at last recognized the principle of reciprocity ".

As mentioned, the permission for commercial or advertising purposes must be requested at least 15 days before the shooting and the municipal manager of the service, then notify in writing the acceptance or not. Image advertising must also be marked "Recovery or photograph taken in San Quirico d'Orcia". When shooting photos or unauthorized or improper use, administrative penalties in addition to compensation for any damage caused.

But what will happen to the tourists who get to take pictures, maybe with a tripod? "They can rest assured, there will be no 'censorship'," reassures Pilgrims, "which prohibits any alert, or trade unions about what you are photographing or filming, any counter-measures will be taken back." And even the exploitation of professional beauties of the village "positive" (architectural photography, travel, which obviously must cite the source), will be penalized in any way by the new regulation.
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The original article is visible here:
http://viaggi.repubblica.it/articolo/san-quirico-si-d-il-copyright/224127

Many tuscan landscapes now are no more suitable for RF photography and I guess the iStock's archives need to be updated.

bad news for us (tuscany people)


 


EDIT : and for many istockers that have many many photo in own hard drive not uploaded yet ! I hope that the law is not retroactive and from exif of the images have to be able to accept images that were taken months / years ago !

(Edited on 2011-07-06 03:07:06 by franckreporter)

Such a 'law' would not be enforceable worldwide. Copyright trees? Ha ha! Maybe the stock sites will make a stand for once and challenge such nonsense.

I'm not sure i got it right. The village is now copyrighted but how it's affects tuscan landscapes?! If it's only landscape, without village involved?!

I guess they want to copyright all the things that are very popular in stock photography:

- the small Chapel
- the famous hill with cypresses
- the Belvedere Landscape (aka Tuscan Villa in the archives)

Try to search "Val d'Orcia", you will easily find these things.

(Edited on 2011-07-06 03:18:51 by gioadventures)

This is strange - I would say it is not possible to copyright old buildings and trees, but they can impose rules on what pictures are taken from their property. The other possible IP (Intellectual property) protection they could have get is to register them as trademark, which is different and the author of the article didn't make a difference between the legal terms. My opinion - an interesting IP case


 

(Edited on 2011-07-06 03:22:36 by narcisa)

Seems also like it's also only when fair use was breached. This might as mentioned before too, only applicable within the EU or jsut Italy, depends on the law being used. Interesting story.


 


ETA: Lone Cypress tree in California is copyrighted, so never say never

It is a weird story for me. You can copyright a building sure but just land sounds weird. What if a mountain get's copyrighted? Yosemitee El Capitan, or the Grand Canyon.

(Edited on 2011-07-06 03:34:52 by mmac72)

Hmm, interesting... Thanks for sharing.

That's unbelievable Gio! I didn't know that whole towns could be copyrighted!
ETA: do you have to go to "Siae" to do that?? ahahaha

(Edited on 2011-07-06 03:58:42 by piccadillyCircus)

I guess it's just a "local law".

They will probably ask for a DOC certification like Parma Ham or Parmiggiano Cheese.

I would say that any ancient building and of course any natural subject cannot be copyrighted. An exception would be if a specific view of a part of a landscape / village would be a trademark for example of  San d'Orcia Qurico, but to copyright all the town and landscapes that surround it seems weird. I think the egiptian government tried / is trying the same with the Pyramids. Another different thing is to restrict access to private property to limit that images/videos would be taken without a fee or control.

A laughable initiative.

Maybe there's something lost in the translation here, but there's a big difference between something you can trademark and something you can copyright. Just for clarity - the Lone Cypress tree has been claimed as a trademark of the Pebble Beach company, it's not copyrighted. As for "copyrighting" buildings and whole towns, that just sounds like nonsense to me

Just a few weeks ago, in a post that I originated here:


http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=330562&page=1


Another, similar, non-Italian, case came out.


Marco


 

Every town has local regulations. It doesn't matter where you are from. On their territory, their law applies, not the one of the country you come from. You are free to not go there if you do not like that. Arguing on a forum is just a complete waste of time.


 

We're not arguing. Just pointing out it is an unenforceable attempt at control.

The Italian article says "copyright". It uses the english word. Maybe is the journalist that used the wrong word. 

(Edited on 2011-07-06 05:14:46 by gioadventures)

Just not true. Local regulations cannot override national, and in this case EU, law. And EU law does not have any concept of copyrighting trees or views.

Hi


In Italy words like copyright, trademark and so on are often used in an improperly way.


 

(Edited on 2011-07-06 05:36:07 by eliandric)