Is The Eiffel Tower Copyrighted?

from the wait-a-minute... dept

Well, here’s the latest in a series of bizarre stories about intellectual property concepts gone ridiculous. Apparently, the city of Paris retook possession of the Eiffel Tower in 2003 and decided that they’d had enough of its likeness being in the public domain. So, what do you do? You change the lighting on it, copyright the new light display and voila, all nighttime photos of the Eiffel Tower are now illegal without a license. This serves what beneficial purpose exactly? It’s hard to see how a photograph of a building that can be seen for miles around could be copyrighted in any way or what that could possibly serve any legitimate intellectual property purpose. It certainly sounds too bizarre to be true.


Rate this comment as insightful
Rate this comment as funny
You have rated this comment as insightful
You have rated this comment as funny
Flag this comment as abusive/trolling/spam
You have flagged this comment
The first word has already been claimed
The last word has already been claimed
Insightful Lightbulb icon Funny Laughing icon Abusive/trolling/spam Flag icon Insightful badge Lightbulb icon Funny badge Laughing icon Comments icon

Comments on “Is The Eiffel Tower Copyrighted?”

Subscribe: RSS Leave a comment
7 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

Reality...

…The French are pissed that Americans can go to Vegas and see a good knock-off of the Eiffel tower.
They’d rather Americans go to their city to be insulted by wanna-be elitists to see the new way they arranged their lights. Who cares? Paris is a little bit more interesting than St. Louis. (I’m not knocking St. Louis) At least the people in Missouri are friendly and decent folks. I don’t see the arch being claimed as intellectual property.

Stephen Paulger (user link) says:

Re: Reality...

Having been to paris and having made photos and videos of the tower. I can assure you of two things. Firstly no one stops you from taking photos while you’re there, I took a whole load while up the tower even. Secondly all the french people I met were really nice, even though I barely managed to make a mockery of their language. As a side-note the new lights are very pretty.

Leave a Reply to VonSkippy Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here

Comment Options:

Make this the or (get credits or sign in to see balance) what's this?

What's this?

Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits can be purchased at the Techdirt Insider Shop »

Follow Techdirt

Techdirt Daily Newsletter

Ctrl-Alt-Speech

A weekly news podcast from
Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw

Subscribe now to Ctrl-Alt-Speech »
Techdirt Deals
Techdirt Insider Discord
The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...
Loading...