Snow v Eaton Centre Ltd

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Snow v. Eaton Centre Ltd.
TorontoEatonCentre.jpg
Flight Stop , the sculpture under dispute at the Eaton Centre
Court Ontario High Court of Justice
Decided1982-12-08
Citation(s)70 CPR (2d) 105, [1982] OJ No 3645
Case opinions
Decision byO'Brien J.
Keywords
copyright, moral rights

Snow v. Eaton Centre Ltd. [1] is a leading Canadian decision on moral rights. The Ontario High Court of Justice affirmed the artist's right to integrity of their work. The operator of the Toronto Eaton Centre was found liable for violating Michael Snow's moral rights by putting Christmas bows on his work Flight Stop .

Contents

Background

Michael Snow was commissioned to do a sculpture called Flight Stop consisting of a number of Canada geese in flight in the atrium of the Toronto Eaton Centre. During the Christmas season of 1981, the Eaton Centre placed red ribbons around the necks of the geese. Snow brought an action against the Centre to get an injunction to have the ribbons removed. He had argued that the ribbons offended the integrity of, and distorted, his work.

Judgment

The judge agreed with Snow. He held that the sculpture's integrity was "distorted, mutilated or otherwise modified" which was "to the prejudice of the honour or reputation of the author" contrary to section 28.2 of the Copyright Act. The opinion was based both on the opinion of Snow as well as the testimony of experts in the art community. [1]

Aftermath

Subsequent to this case, the standard for moral rights infringement has been raised by the requirement for more objective evidence of prejudice and harm. Evidence from other respected artists and people knowledgeable in the field is required to prove prejudice to honour or reputation. [2]

The Copyright Act of Canada has also been amended since this case so that any modification to a painting, sculpture or engraving is deemed to prejudice the author. [3] For those types of works, no evidence of actual prejudice is required. [4]

Related Research Articles

A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.

Moral rights are rights of creators of copyrighted works generally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and, to a lesser extent, in some common law jurisdictions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toronto Eaton Centre</span> Shopping mall and office complex in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Snow</span> Canadian artist (1928–2023)

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Prise de parole Inc. v. Guérin, éditeur Ltée. is a leading Canadian case on moral rights in Canadian copyright law. The Federal Court of Canada found that the plaintiff's moral rights had not been violated because there was no objective evidence that the reproduction caused harm to his reputation.

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Moral rights in Canadian copyright law are protected under the Copyright Act of Canada and include an author's right to attribution, integrity and association of a work. Moral rights are to be distinguished from economic rights; moral rights essentially being derived from the reflection of the author's personality in his or her work, whereas economic rights grant an author the ability to benefit economically from their work. An author of a work retains moral rights for the length of the copyright, even if the copyright has been assigned or licensed to another party. Moral rights cannot be assigned or licensed, but can be waived by contract.

<i>Amar Nath Sehgal v. Union of India</i>

Amar Nath Sehgal v. Union of India is a landmark Indian case decided by the Delhi High Court, which for the first time upheld the moral right of an author under the Indian Copyright Act and awarded damages. The government was also asked to return his mural.

<i>Monty Python v. American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.</i> 1976 United States court case

Monty Python v. American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. was a case where the British comedy group Monty Python claimed that the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) had violated their copyright and caused damage to their artistic reputation by broadcasting drastically edited versions of several of their shows. An appeals court found in favor of Monty Python, directing a ban of further broadcasts by ABC on the basis of violation of the Lanham Act, which could provide protection in the United States similar to that provided by moral rights in Europe, and gave the opinion that the group's copyright had probably also been infringed.

Mannu Bhandari v. Kala Vikas Motion Pictures Ltd is a landmark case in the area of Indian copyright law. It is the first decision from the Indian higher judiciary that clarified the scope and ambit of moral rights under the Indian copyright law.

<i>Flight Stop</i> Art installation in Toronto

Flight Stop, also titled Flightstop, is a 1979 site-specific art work by Canadian artist Michael Snow. Located in the Toronto Eaton Centre in Downtown Toronto, the work hangs from the ceiling and appears to depict sixty Canada geese in flight. Each individual goose is made of Styrofoam covered in fibreglass and covered in a sheath made from photographs taken from a single goose. The flock is frozen in mid-flight, "flight stop" being a pun on the nature of still photography. When conceived in 1977, the work was titled Flight Stop but has frequently also been titled Flightstop. The work remains an iconic public art piece in Toronto and in many ways stands as a visual identity for the mall.

References

  1. 1 2 Snow v. Eaton Centre Ltd. (1982), 70 CPR (2d) 105.
  2. Prise de Parole Inc v Guérin, Éditeur Ltée (1995), 66 CPR (3d) 257.
  3. Copyright Act, RSC 1985, c C-42, s 28.2(2).
  4. David Vaver, Intellectual Property Law: Copyright, Patents, Trade-Marks, 2nd ed (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2011) at 209.

See also