Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

Cory Doctorow has this at BoingBoing:

Chicago's public sculpture can't be photographed by the public
Chicago spent $270 million on its Millennium Park, placing a big public sculpture by Anish Kapoor in the middle of it, bought with public money. Woe betide any member of the public who tries to photograph this sculpture, though: it's a copyrighted sculpture and Chicago is spending even more money policing Chicagoans who try to photograph it and make a record of what their tax-dollars bought.

If I were them, I'd ask for my money back. What kind of jerk sculptor sells the city a piece of public art for a public park and then demands that no one take pictures of it? Christ, they should run this guy out of town on a rail and melt the goddamned sculpture down for scrap. Then they should fire the politician who signed a purchase contract that reserved the photographic rights and run him out of town on the same rail. Between the artist's greed and the procurement officer's malfeasance, this is about the vilest display of human venality I've heard of all day.

The copyrights for the enhancements in Millennium Park are owned by the artist who created them. As such, anyone reproducing the works, especially for commercial purposes, needs the permission of that artist.

BoingBoig via Today's Podcast

You know, I have to wonder if this isn't a *good* thing myself. This is exactly the kind of thing that people need to see to understand that our IP law is broken. I honestly can't wait until Time Warner starts deleting stuff off people's TiVo without telling them. I guess it will take actually seeing the full repercussions of this heinous legislation before the public wakes up to what it all means. Just as people start buying DVD burners and PVRs, along comes the Broadcast Flag. Priceless.