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Listed buildings you say?
This sounds like the equivalent of the U.S. National Historic
Landmarks. You might be surprised to
here that landmarks in the U.S.
don?t carry as many protections as in the UK. Did you ever see Planet of the Apes? Remember that scene at the end of the movie
where we see a mostly buried Statue of Liberty?
One of our most sacred landmarks was available for ?creative?
interpretation.
Or maybe you?ve seen Independence Day where aliens literally
blow up the White House. Our landmarks
do have protections against destruction, just not in a virtual artistic way. The National Historic Preservation Act of
1966 protects the well being of the real physical landmarks. However, this act contains nothing on
copyrights.
To find the answers there we must look to the section 102 of
the U.S. Copyright Act. The Copyright Act
will protect buildings created on or after December 1, 1990.
Any architectural work built before that date carries no copyright
protections in the U.S. That means the Roman Pool, and all of the
buildings on the Hearst Estate for that matter, carry no copyright protection
(save maybe a new wing on the visitors center). The same should also be true for artistic recreations of buildings such as the White House, Lincoln Memorial, or
the Hoover Dam.
For further reading on the subject:
http://www.achp.gov/NHPA.pdf
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ41.html
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