Okay, I’m back from my holiday vacation break, and practically the first thing I learn is that Zahi Hawass, the irrepressible head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, has announced that Egypt’s parliament will shortly consider a law that would put his nation’s museum pieces and monuments, including the pyramids, under copyright protection. Presuming that Egypt can get other nations to recognize its claim, anyone seeking to make detailed replicas of the pyramids, of the Sphinx or of, say, statues and other objects in the Cairo Museum, would be obliged to pay a copyright fee to the Egyptian government.
My question: Can you copyright ancient monuments that have no known architect? The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works provides a mechanism to extend protection to the “authors” of works of architecture. Some sculptural monuments by identifiable artists have copyrights. The Statue of Liberty — by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi — has had one since 1876, ten years before it was dedicated in New York harbor. And though the Eiffel Tower has been in the public domain for years, its night time image is not. Its decorative electric light display is copyrighted, which effectively copyrights the tower at night, so commercial photographers have to pay a fee to take its picture once the lights are on.
But I’m not aware of any ancient monument subject to copyright protection, and I’m wondering if a copyright claim on the pyramids would be one that other nations would be obliged to recognize. If it is, it should be interesting to see what that means for this little pyramid here.
