Copyrighted paintings – less to the story than meets the eye

Another “isn't the establishment evil and stupid story?” One paragraph
after what's quoted here is the following from the original story:

Actually, the museum guard was mistaken. There
was no copyright issue, and the museum apologizes and is telling
artists to sketch away as long as they do not interrupt the flow of
traffic in the always crowded gallery.


So perhaps we have a training issue or a somewhat overzealous and
underinformed guard. Is this selective sharing of the story
helpful? You know that this would have disappeared in a heartbeat if
fully reported, while selective quotation gave it some blog legs. Isn't
there enough actual dumb behavior out there that we can let this one
pass?

Stop sketching, little girl — those paintings are copyrighted!. Xeni Jardin:
Museum security guard told a child to stop sketching paintings in a museum — because they're copyrighted.

It is standard operating
procedure for students of art to learn by example by sketching
masterpieces in an art museum. A budding artist in Durham found that
the time honored tradition was challenged while seeking inspiration at
the Matisse, Picasso and the School of Paris: Masterpieces from the
Baltimore Museum of Art exhibit in Raleigh.

Over the weekend at the North Carolina Museum of Art there were
works by Matisse, Picasso, Monet, Degas and some Illanas. Julia Illana
is a second grader who was visiting the popular exhibit there with her
parents and was sketching the paintings in her notebook. “I love to
draw in my notebook,” Illana said.

Her sketch of Picasso's Woman with Bangs, which came out pretty
good, and Matisse's Large Reclining Nude got the promising artist into
trouble with museum security. A museum guard told Julia's parents that
sketching was prohibited because the great masterpieces are copyright
protected, a concept that young Julia did not understand until her
mother explained the term.