CN Tower's management company claims that any picture of the landmark building is a trademark violation

boing
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Can I put © Me on a sign in front of my house and charge Google for the image every time it appears on Google Earth? Might be a revenue stream there… :thinking::crazy_face:

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The Eiffel Tower has been pulling this shit for years.

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Over here, in france and belgium, that’s the way it works sadly.

Can’t take pictures of ‘copyrighted’ buildings.

Have had youtube videos taken down because a famous buildiung was in it :frowning:

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I vaguely remember something like this about the Flat Iron Building in New York; but that might have just been a way of getting cash out of film productions.

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Could this have anything to do with that Digital Downtown in Toronto? Isn’t there an augmented reality thing going on there that might depend on images of the buildings in the environment? They might be trying to monetize their image as it is used in augmented reality.

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Often wonder about the control/money thing. Isn’t it usually just money? In this case the merely very rich - aka the temporarily embarrassed ultra super rich - wanting a piece?

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In most countries, standing on street corner while being photographed is considered “in the public domain,” yet somehow jutting straight up into the sky is something akin to protected airspace?

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Please make the cheque out to M. Eiffel and send it to Paris - observation tower (1889) and transmitter (1909).

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I think the Empire State building makes these types of claims as well. Stock photo sites will not let you sell photos of the building without permission.

Also, try taking photos in the subway or grand central station (while using something conspicuous like a tripod)… Security finds you pretty quickly, but I think they claim it’s for terrorist prevention or something (or maybe to control filming permits). As though these are not well-photographed places already.

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And a TARDIS, to go back before 1904. :sunglasses:

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Shopping malls, too, for that matter. I got shooed out of a mall that was a week away from closing for good, just for having a camera. Of course, this was long before every cellphone was equipped with one.

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You might have to clear this with the architect that designed your house first.
Depending on the IP laws in your part of the world and the architect’s contract, they may have certain rights.

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I’d dig up a photo I instagrammed a while back in Toronto but then someone could link my accounts but I am still very upset as you can tell from me posting on the internet about it.

(I’d ring the king of ontario or whatever but they’d just be like “you’re American we don’t care what you think”)

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Happens here in the U.K., shopping malls are private spaces, not public, and can set whatever rules they like regarding photography in their space.
Same goes for some large buildings in London, like the ‘Gerkin’, where security will hassle people taking photos outside.

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Not being a doctor who fan, I think this went right over me head… Do you mean the old station? I guess the current one is Grand Central Terminal, not “station”.?

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I’d ring the king of ontario or whatever

His name is Doug Ford but, since his subjects started heckling him at almost every public gathering, he’s not been seen. His pal Andy wants to become King of Canada and Andy is an American so might listen.

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we have a saying down south: no take backs

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did they bring a corded phone to the table like in fear and loathing

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It looks like the Canada Lands Company does in fact have a registered trademark for a CN Tower design which covers “books”. So this complaint isn’t as egregious as some trademark complaints that get thrown around.

But there still has to be some element of confusion about the source of the book. Canada Lands’ claim is essentially that anyone who sees the CN Tower on a book would assume that the book is published by them. It seems like notability actually works against them here. Pics of the CN Tower are so prevalent that nobody makes any assumptions about the source of a product just because it has the CN Tower on it. If I see a CN Tower keychain, I’m more likely to assume it comes from a Chinese souvenir mill than I am to assume it comes from Canada Lands Co.

That’s different from, a publisher’s logo. If some other publisher was slapping TOR’s logo on their books, that really would confuse me.

Edited to add: Actually, it looks like the trademark is for “Souvenirs items, namely… books…”, not just books generally. So more points against.

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