Uffizi Galleries Sue Jean Paul Gaultier over Use of Botticelli Images

The issue is likely to be over who took the modern photograph of the work and that's copyrighted/copyrightable. This ought to be nonsense but it isn't. The trouble is that the use of copyright here locks up works of art and much other other material that's long, long out of copyright. It restricts public access to works that everyone ought to have access to.

All galleries and museums have to do is to keep famous works out of sight or in positions where any photograph taken is sub-optimal or ban taking photos altogether then make available their own copyrighted photographs that were taken under ideal conditions—but at a price! This is a massive breach of the public domain and ought to be outlawed under law.

If galleries and museums say that they depend on the income that such works bring in then I'd suggest the income model is wrong. 'Bastardizing' copyright in this way isn't the answer. And I'd ask what financial income model did these 'copyright-dependent' museums use before this nonsense started some time about three/four decades ago (obviously they were successful back then)? Perhaps they ought to be forced to retreat to that earlier income model.

Incidentally, I took my own photographs of the Birth of Venus in the Uffizi some three decades ago and they were easy photos to take (the lighting was excellent). I'm now curious as to why I had no trouble taking the photo at the time (nor did I have any problem taking photos anywhere else in Florence back then—and I always take many (in brackets) to ensure that I always get at least one good photograph. For instance I recall exposing several full 36-exp rolls of film when on top of Brunelleschi's Dome (as one doesn't get to do that very often)).

Thus, it seems that this recent copyright action by the Uffizi implies that the rules about taking photographs in the gallery must have tightened up in recent years.