Italian Officials Claim American Gun Ad Featuring Michelangelo's David Is 'Illegal'

from the but-is-it? dept

Somehow the word “copyright” is being thrown around in relation to a 500-year-old statue. Any reasonable person would assume the word “copyright” shouldn’t come within 350 years of any creation, but that’s how the story’s being presented. (h/t to Techdirt reader WulfTheSaxon)

Italy’s culture minister has expressed outrage over an advertisement by a US weapons firm showing Michelangelo’s David holding a rifle. Dario Franceschini said the image was offensive and violated the law.

A number of Italian media web sites carried the image of the advertisement showing David holding a bolt-action rifle. The advertisement, from Illinois-based ArmaLite, carries the line “a work of art” in promoting the $3,000 rifle. Mr Franceschini urged the company to withdraw the advertisement for the AR-50A1.

He said in a tweet: “The image of David, armed, offends and infringes the law. We will take action against the American company so that it immediately withdraws its campaign.”

First off, the ad itself is over a year old, as Sara Morrison at The Wire points out. The ad was originally tweeted by Armalite back in May of 2013. This ad, however, was only recently published in Italy, hence the sudden outrage.

AR-50A1: A WORK OF ART! http://t.co/iITCN2qKnh pic.twitter.com/wr2yTnLhve

— ArmaLite Inc. (@ArmaLiteInc) May 15, 2013

Now, as for the claim of copyright… that doesn’t seem to be exactly what’s being claimed here. (And, indeed, none of the officials quoted actually use the word “copyright,” instead claiming the ad “distorts” the original work. That term is deployed solely by reporting on the event.) The country of Italy “owns” Michelangelo’s statue of David (finished in 1504), although the piece itself resides in Florence, a claim not without its own controversy. (Italy claimed the statue in 2010, something that enraged Florence officials who firmly believed that statue belonged to the city that had hosted it since its completion.)

What Italian officials actually seem to be claiming is control over use of images of the sculpture, which is adjacent to copyright, but not entirely the same thing.

Cristina Acidini, Florence superintendent for history and fine arts, condemned the company’s use of the image and also urged ArmaLite to immediately withdraw it.

“To use a work of art from any of the Florence museums for promotional purposes, it is necessary to obtain an evaluation of how the image may be used,” Miss Acidini said. “No-one ever agreed to that.”

What’s being stated here sounds more like publicity rights. Florence officials are seeking to control use of David’s “image” in advertising. (“Image” in this case being the collective perception of a cultural icon, rather than a photograph.) Italy may technically “own” the sculpture (as much as anyone can “own” a cultural icon), but it can’t claim to control the copyright, which has long since expired. (And that’s even under Italy’s restrictive laws which make no allowances for fair use and include dubious “moral rights” as part of the copyright package.)

So, Florence effectively controls use of images (photos) of the sculpture, and is trying to assert some form of publicity rights on behalf of a statue. It can’t lock anyone out from producing their own David sculptures, but what museum officials have done instead is prevent anyone from producing their own images. The museum has a strict “no photography” policy which means that any photos of David are controlled by the museum. (There doesn’t seem to any similar policy restricting photography of the replica located elsewhere in Florence.) In this fashion, Florence officials can seek to control of David’s use in commercial works via copyright law, even if what’s being detailed here seems to rely more on outrage over “distorting” the sculpture’s iconic status than any true legal basis.

But this assertion of control over a cultural icon is still specious, as even the Florence superintendent of fine arts seems to realize. As Cristina Acidini says at ilpost.com, it’s an “international event” but “I cannot, of course, send the FBI after Armalite.” Instead, she intends to use the court of public opinion to render a verdict in the museum’s favor and shame ArmaLite into dumping the ad.

“But I intend to use all the possibilities of reaction… starting with the ‘moral persuasion’ and scandal in the newspapers.”

So, what we have is a copyright-esque assertion being used to shame a gun manufacturer into dropping an ad that has offended cultural sensibilities halfway around the world (ArmaLite is based in Illinois). At the center of it all is a 500-year-old sculpture currently in the public domain, but controlled by “adjacent” copyright measures. In the end, all these Italian officials have is their offended sensibilities, which really isn’t enough to justify their demands.

Filed Under: copyright, david, italy, michelangelo, publicity rights
Companies: armalite