Full transcript
0:00This video was made possible by Squarespace.
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0:08If you recreationally browse stock footage sites like me, you might have noticed something—you
0:13can almost never find videos of the Eiffel Tower at night, and there’s a good reason
0:17for that.
0:18They’re illegal.
0:19This video, fully legal.
0:21This one… well I can’t show it to you because it’s 100% unequivocally illegal.
0:26It all has to do with a bit of a quirk in French copyright law.
0:30But first, a copyright law crash course.
0:32Wait a minute, is that copyrighted?
0:35Well their logo is at least, and their thumbnails too, and banner… gahhh sorry Green Brothers,
0:39blame the animator.
0:40Copyright law basically gives the original creator of a thing exclusive rights to its
0:44sale and distribution for as long as they live plus a certain amount of time.
0:48In Pakistan it’s 50 years, in Venezuela it’s 60, in Jamaica it’s 95, but in all
0:53of of these countries it’s 70.
0:56That includes the European Union which, with copyright law, more or less operates as one
1:01country.
1:02One of the major exceptions to EU copyright law is the freedom of Panorama.
1:06Basically, I can legally show you this view of the London skyline even though there are
1:11plenty of copyrighted things in this view.
1:14For the purposes of copyright, buildings are classified as artistic works.
1:19These buildings have the exact same protections as a movie, a song, or this very YouTube video.
1:24You can’t just go and build an exact replica of the London Eye without paying the original
1:29architects, but you can take a video of it because of that Freedom of Panorama.
1:34Essentially, anything you see outside in public in the UK and much of the European Union can
1:39be filmed, reproduced, and sold, but there are exceptions—most notably, France.
1:45The European Union allows its members to not have a Freedom of Panorama clause in their
1:50copyright laws so France doesn’t have one.
1:53As of 2016 you are allowed to take images and videos of copyrighted buildings for personal
1:58use, but any commercial use is copyright violation.
2:02That means showing this video is risky—I’ll have to blur out this, this, this, this, this,
2:07this, and this.
2:09These blurred buildings were all probably designed by architects that are either alive
2:13or died within the last 70 years so they still are copyrighted and the architects could sue
2:19me if I had shown them since this video is commercial use.
2:23So back to the Eiffel Tower which according to this Google reviewer is “too windy,”
2:27and “if it were American we would stop all the wind.”
2:30Knowing what we now know, the real question is, why is it even legal to show the Eiffel
2:35tower during the day.
2:36Well, it’s very old.
2:38Gustave Eiffel actually didn’t design the Eiffel tower.
2:41He bought the designs from the Stephen Sauvestre who’s employees, Maurice Koechlin and Émile
2:46Nouguier actually designed the tower.
2:48Nonetheless, when Eiffel bought the design he bought the copyright too, but then he died
2:53in 1923.
2:5470 years after that, in 1993, the copyright lapsed, just like with any other artistic
2:59work.
3:00So, the Eiffel Tower, its likeness, its design, everything is in the public domain.
3:05All those Eiffel Tower replicas sold on the streets of Paris are actually, surprisingly,
3:10fully legal.
3:11However, the lights on the Eiffel Tower weren’t installed until 1985, therefore, since they’re
3:17considered an artistic work, they are well within their copyright term.
3:21For this reason, any photo taken at night when the lights are visible is an illegal
3:26reproduction of a copyrighted work.
3:28The Eiffel tower isn't the only example of this.
3:31I can’t show you the pyramid of the Louvre, the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen, or
3:35even the main train station in Rome.
3:37In reality the Eiffel Tower’s copyright has never been enforced in court, but at any
3:42moment that could change and you could you to jail for your holiday photo.
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