Storm in a Pepsi Bottle

Light From an Empty Fridge
Friday March 12, 2004

Storm in a Pepsi bottle
http://www.fridgemagnet.org.uk/archives/2004/03/002812.shtml

Artist Joy Garnett seems to have got into a bit of legal trouble with a
painting called Molotov, part of a exhibition called Riot based on photos
from newswires and news sources.

What's the issue? Well, it's not, as I first expected, the fact that the
molotov bottle has a Pepsi logo on it. That initially reminded me of
Alexander Kosolapov, whose use of corporate logos I wrote about before. It
appears, though, that the painting is based on a photograph taken in 1978,
and the photojournalist who took it is suing for X thousand dollars and
also as a general Cease And Desist to prevent further exhibition.

It's not therefore a case of Evil Corporate Censorship Boo Hiss, unless
there's something going on that I wasn't aware of, but it does seem like
another example of a ridiculous use of copyright given that the original
was taken over twenty-five years ago and this painting cannot be said to
be depriving the original photographer of anything at all - in fact it
potentially increases her profile. Nobody is going to use this painting
for some purpose instead of the original. A painting of a photograph is
not a copy of the photograph, rather a derived work, and the original was
publicly displayed in news media which increases the degree to which it
could be said to be public domain. This looks like simple artistic
oversensitivity and I don't have much sympathy.

Anyway, here are a couple more links on the subject. New developments will
bring updates, though only if I hear about them, obviously.

* News story on rhizome.org where Garnett appears to be a member. I'm
delving through posts on rhizome.org to try to find out a little more
information.
* Solidarity page - links to lots of interesting modified and derived
works that people have done based on Molotov as part of the campaign - for
example, Distorted Molotov, an entry that also