A Montreal artist and lecturer

Amos Latteier, a Montreal artist and lecturer, had to get Kaskey’s permission to use the likeness of the statue for his Be Portlandia project in 2003. That project, which Latteier had to assure Kaskey he would not profit from, involved the creation of an art installation reminiscent of Portlandia’s perch on the Portland Building and photographing people posing on it with a trident. “In general, I have an unfavorable view of copyright law,” Latteier tells WW. “It doesn’t benefit most artists or the process of cultural creation. “Likewise, I am generally opposed to rent-seeking behavior.”

 “Copyright has its origins in censorship and thought control,” says Stephan Kinsella, a Houston intellectual property lawyer and author of Against Intellectual Property. Kinsella cites odd outcomes such as the city of Paris’ 2003 move to copyright the night view of its signature structure. “You could be sued by the city of Paris for using a photo of the Eiffel Tower taken at night—and only at night—without its consent,” he says. Similar things have happened to other public art. Last year, a federal court awarded sculptor Frank Gaylord of Vermont nearly $700,000 in damages after determining the U.S. Postal Service did not have permission to use a photograph of Gaylord’s 1995 work “The Column,” a group of sculptures of U.S. soldiers and sailors that is part of the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., on a commemorative stamp.