I'm confused. We think that photographers ("2d-scanners"?) deserve the copyright to their photos of public-domain objects, but "3d-scanners" don't?
What's the reasoning for that?
What's the reasoning for that?
In the USA at least, "sweat of the brow" doctrine does not legally exist for copyright. Ie., it doesn't matter at all how much work someone put into something not copyrightable, it's still not copyrightable. "Mere collections of facts" fall under this, with a classic example being a phonebook. It might (at least historically) have been an enormous amount of work to accurately collect, compile and maintain a phone listing for an area. But it would have no copyright protection. A unique and creative presentation could, but not something basic and expected like alphabetical or numeric order. This has been definitively settled by the Supreme Court.
A 3D point cloud is a mere collection of facts about the geometry of an object. If the object is already public domain that's that. You could certainly use that data to make something creative and copyrightable in a large variety of ways though.
A recipe's failures under copyright follow both from it being a factual relation (ingredients, quantities, treatment, cooking), and a result (a finished dish or baked good). Neither of these is protected under US copyright law.
See: Publications International, Ltd. v. Meredith Corp.
There are "light field" cameras now that try to capture all the light coming from the subject, so that the photographer can make the creative decisions later. I assume you'd also be of the opinion that these should not be copyrightable?
And, from the article, the file published by the museum in the article also included a copyright notice on the bottom. Which means it wasn't just a point cloud of the original, but a cleaned and altered version (I don't know what format it is in, so I don't know if it had been converted to a set of instructions). It may also include supports and struts for the model to allow overhangs. Clearly this involved some creative input, and therefore should be copyrightable. Would you agree with that?
In practice, most photos involve creating or capturing a scene in a unique or new way, and this adds something new sufficient to make the photograph a new work and hence subject to copyright.
The act of photographing a public domain painting in such a way that you just reproduce the painting and add nothing new, however, doesn't necessarily create a new work - it may instead count as a reproduction of that original work and hence subject to the original work's copyright, as no new copyrightable material is added.
There is a bit of a grey area in that if I say, arrange a whole bunch of public domain art in a particular way and photograph it, I could quite reasonably argue that my arrangement itself consists of a work and so my photographs are subject to copyright. Similarly if I parody or otherwise transform a public domain work, I can assert that my work is copyrightable as it is transformative. This 3D scan doesn't fall into this area however since the scan was clearly intended to reproduce the original work, as opposed to create a new copyrightable work.
I used to be a photographer, and a tech at a high-end photo lab (e.g. we had a couple of Condé Nast magazines as clients). A lot of jobs incurred more work from the technically demanding end (high resolution scans, color matching) than the creative end.
It's not always clear-cut, there's usually going to be a bit of both sides. There's the whole idea of derived works, where the changes you've made are yours but the work as a whole is also entangled in the copyright of the original. But the more the new work is (meant to be) a faithful reproduction, the more it's "just" a copy and not a new riff. Again, it's about the intention and the difference in content between old and new, not so much about how much work or skill was required.
Another separate point, supposing for the sake of argument 3D models are not creative... It is well known that, say, a "white pages" style phone directory was ruled not to be copyrightable. But does that mean it is a copyright violation?
WRT your second paragraph, I'm not sure I understand. How could there be a copyright violation on something that can't be copyrighted?
I mean, nobody other than the scanner chose or wrote down all those numbers. The creator of the object made an object. Seems like the same distinction to me as a house vs. its phone number and address which locate it.
Per wikipedia[1] copywrite is on "the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work".
The bust is that expression, the scan is a copy of that and therefore subject to the same copyright as the bust itself (in this case, no copyright).
For a house, I suppose the original expression would be the architect's plans, the house itself is a performance of that expression (when you commission plans from architects part of the terms are under what conditions you can build according to those plans; where I'm from standard terms are for a single performance, at the site the plans were originally commissioned for).
A photo of the house (partially) copies the house which (partially) copies the plans, therefore the photo is subject to the same copyright as the plans (depending on what the jurisdiction says about photos of things in public space). However, a photo may also contain creative expression in the framing, lighting, etc, and is therefore also subject to its own copyright. So to distribute the photo you need permission to distribute this original expression, plus permission to distribute the underlying expression. The more concrete example of this is with models -- advertisers need permission from both the photographer and the model being depicted in the photograph.
There's no creative expression in a phone number or an address, so copyright doesn't apply. Even if there were, there are usually exceptions to enable interoperation (AFAIK Oracle including a poem as part of the database wire protocol[2] hasn't been tested in court, but it's basically the same thing as in Sega vs Accolade[3], which didn't go well for Sega).
I hope something in there answered your question.
Again I'm not a lawyer, this is my understanding from my past work both as a photographer in my own name (i.e. I own the copyrights) and doing work-for-hire. And more recently contracting with architects and arguing over the terms.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
This 3D scan though, is not a reproduction. It is a measurement.
If I run my tape measure around Nefertiti's head, I will obtain a measurement. If you repeat it, it will be the same, provided we both know how to use a tape measure, limited only by the fidelity of our tool.
In fact, any technician, given the tool and a manual, will create precisely the same 3D model.
Having seen Nefertiti with my own eyes, it was a transformative experience, for which I am thankful. But I could never shake the feeling that it should not be in Berlin. I was only able to justify my purchasing the ticket from the looters, since they can be considered to render a service by at the very least preserving it. Like a hostage should be grateful for receiving food. But they certainly do not own it, nor any rights derived from it.
Also, another way to look at it is that you can derive a 3D model from many 2D photos. So does it make sense to claim you can derive something non-creative from many creative works, yet the thing it relates to is the original?
One argument would be that photography involves many creative choices regarding angle, lighting, and so forth, so there’s millions of photos of the Grand Canyon and they’re all different, whereas every 3D scan of the bust would be basically the same except maybe for resolution.
On the other hand, consider maps, or to get really specific, topographic maps. Most people (apart from those against copyright in general) would say you should retain copyright on a topographic map you’ve made of the Grand Canyon, even though that’s really just a 3D scan.
But it's absolutely not "just a 3D scan". I mean, unless you literally had a bunch of drones or something fly through the Grand Canyon and make an actual 3D scan as a pure replication with no further work, sure that'd be a real 3D scan. But actual maps always require creativity. There is no one way to draw lines, objects, water, etc. What should be included on a map, and what is noise? How do you balance between level of detail vs noisiness? What is worthy of being included? What kind of coloring/texture/shading? A hundred cartographers with the exact same tech could all make a map of an area and every single map would be different to one degree or another, not least depending on the exact purpose the map was intended for. That's was particularly true with the limitations of paper, but it still is even electronically. Take a look at the standard map view for Apple Maps vs Google Maps vs various Open Street Maps etc. For the exact same area they'll all be emphasizing different things, and reasonable people very much do disagree on the best way.
So maps are very much copyrightable (though lots are in the public domain since works of the USG are all public domain). They're not just mechanical reproductions.