Sculpture, Industrial Design, Architecture, and the Right to Control Use of Publicly Displayed Works

This article explores the anomalous ways in which copyright owners may control use of works they publicly display. Treatment of rights associated with publicly displayed sculpture and architecture are dramatically different. The copyright statute deprives owners of copyrights in constructed buildings of the ability to police the ways in which imagery or other uses of the publicly visible structure may be exploited by others. This article focuses on three related but different settings involving the public display of (1) a work of graffiti, (2) a large-scale sculpture, and (3) a building with sculptural features. Through an analysis of the differences in their treatment, this article investigates problems in extant law and suggests potential resolutions of the issues