More on the "Dance Steps on Broadway" Suit

I'm very interested in hearing more about this. I've had contact with both Mackie (who says he's getting lots of hate mail) and Hipple.

I'm still waiting to hear Mackie's side of the story, but it sounds like he still contends that his public artwork is private. And of course I'd like to do everything I can to keep his name in the limelight so we don't forget who he is next time he applies for a public art project. Not only that, I'd like to see contractual language in the city's agreements with artists that ensures that public art is just that, public.

Furthermore, I don't care if Hipple sold the image to a stock photo agency. It's a derivative work. It's a photo. He's got as much right to sell that as he does to sell any other photo of Seattle. If Mackie were to win a suit like this, it would man that nobody can sell stock images, or sell photos at tourist places, of things such as ships (they belong to the shipping company), any building that has public art out front, and many businesses. Is Starbucks going to claim that if you take a picture of the market and the Starbucks logo can be seen, that they own the copyright on that image?

We need to stand up against this kind of madness.

You can read our full coverage here - I covered this kerfuffle in one more post in which I spoke to Mike Hipple, the photographer. We'll update as we hear more.

Sorry for taking so long. I am trying to get in contact with the photographer.

Where is the follow-up on this story?

I'll run Hipple's response tomorrow.

That's Mackie's website. Do you know who owns that image, or what it's called? I'd like to follow up on it.

Oh ... and another thing. I am unsure if it is the same Seattle Jack Mackie at http://www.jackmackie.com but the photo on the front page is stolen.

It is a photograph of a home in Farm Street, North Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia. The image is of a power pole planted in a driveway awaiting the electricity provider to remove. The image is owned, and has been used frequently without permission all over the internet. Wish I owned it, I would sue.

Look you can search all over Google and find a template for dance steps. It is not like this work is original.

I think the best thing to do here is for the authorities to dig the piece up and scrap it since the artist is causing more grief than it is worth.

Then just get a template for dance steps, and have someone cast it in a metal, and stick it back in its place.

On the $ front. I can't imagine how this "artist" can claim an economic loss of $60,000.

i agree with the sculpture about people not being able to use his copyrighted works for profit in non-fair-use situations but i disagree with how this is playing out.

my take is that images of public artworks should be freely photographed, and the photographs freely sold. the entity that purchases the photograph should be responsible for obtaining the proper releases for any person, model or artwork in the photo if they wish to republish the photo. the photographer i encouraged to obtain this permission in advance, because securing this permission should greatly increase the likelihood of sales, as the purchaser need not perform any additional legwork.

the problem with the current situation is that by putting the *entire* onus on the photographer to establish model/artwork release rights, there is and will increasingly be a chilling effect on photographing people/objects in public. there may also be some people purchasing the photo of the artwork for the purposes of fair use criticism/commentary on the artwork, where i think permission or payment to the artist may not be appropriate and should not necessarily be necessary.

basically, i think the artist should be compensated, but i don't think the onus should be all on the photographer and i don't think permission should always be required in advance of sale. at least some, if not all of the onus should be on the purchasers of the work, depending on how they choose to use it.

wow that comment was atrocious. i meant "sculptor" not "sculpture" and "is encouraged" not "i encouraged".

my kingdom for an 'edit' button.

Can we just rip Mackie's stupid sculpture out of the sidewalk since he doesn't want people looking at it?

you get an F for reading comprehension.

mackie states that anyone can take a picture of (and hence look at) his work. what someone cannot do is try to profit off of said picture. how is this a hard concept for people to grasp?

he holds the copyright, if you want to use his art in your picture to make a buck you have to get mackie's permission - hipple did not.

Mackie has the legal right to do what he's doing but that doesn't make it right. Suing Hipple for $60,000 in damages is out of line. Copyright exists to encourage creation not serve as a lottery ticket 20 years after the fact.

Mr. Mackie is certainly going to have to establish damages if the judge is going to go for $60,000. I'm not a copyright attorney but the minimum threshold for statutory fines might even be higher than that. There was a copyright case in Federal Court in Florida in 2008 in which a photographer was awarded millions of dollars when a real estate company used her images commercially without her permission. So $60K is hardly a "lottery ticket" amount, considering what Mr. Mackie could easily shell out in legal costs for this litigation.

I don't know Mr. Mackie (and actually never heard of him nor noticed this sculpture) before I saw this article. So I have no idea why he went the legal route. But something tells me that Mr. Hipple probably squandered a chance to be contrite and apologetic. I'll be curious to see what he told Seattlest in the follow-up.

z33bleoop: The larger argument here is that Mackie's lawsuit against Hipple is completely frivolous and without merit. Mackie requested the photo be removed two years ago. Hipple immediately complied. A year later Mackie decides to go after both the stock agency and Hipple. He gets a hefty settlement from the stock agency and then continues to go after Hipple, another local artist, who promptly complied with Mackie's request in the first place. In addition, Hipple made a whopping $60 off the photo. GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!!!!!

Mackie comes off as nothing but a petty little money grubber who's trying to portray himself as a wee little victim when he's notorious for this kind of aggressive legal behavior.

If he wants absolute control over the dance steps (which are obviously not original in themselves), then take the damn things and hang them up in a museum and get them the hell out of our public space!

This case raises some interesting issues and it's complicated so I'm not really certain what is right. But I'm inclined to support Mr. Mackie as I think it is WAY too easy for people to steal and profit from copyright holders these days and there are some really good reasons why copyright law exists.

Much of the emotion I see here in these comments have to do with the notion of a lawsuit. I think people have become so weary of stories in the media about people suing for millions for falling down in stores or burning themselves with Starbucks coffee that they forget that there actually ARE times when the legal system can be employed to foster social change.

I still do think there are some interesting gray areas here. But I'd almost encourage people to divorce their thoughts from their feelings about the ugliness of a lawsuit and think about how you would feel if someone took something that YOU created and made money from it.

So if you're caught speeding and you immediately comply by stopping when the officer pulls you over, then the ticket you get is frivolous?

Well, it may not be legally frivolous. Mackie sued the Seattle Symphony for using an image of the dance steps sculpture in their promo materials. He won, although he was not awarded damages. The law is, at least in part, in his favor. On the other hand, the fact that Hipple removed the images from circulation upon cease-and-desist does make the case look a little silly.