AP ; Danish Supreme Court says newspaper did not violate copyright of Little Mermaid statue
"Denmark’s Supreme Court on Wednesday overruled two lower courts, saying a cartoon depicting Copenhagen’s The Little Mermaid statue as a zombie and a photo of it with a face mask did not violate the copyright of the famous bronze...
Copenhagen’s district court and the Eastern High Court found in 2020 and 2022 that the cartoon and the photo were infringements of the Danish Copyright Act, and ordered the newspaper — one of Denmark’s largest — to pay the heirs of Danish sculptor Edvard Eriksen thousands of kroner in compensation.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court said “that neither the caricature drawing nor the photograph of The Little Mermaid with a mask on, which was brought to Berlingske in connection with newspaper articles, infringed the copyright of the heirs to the sculpture The Little Mermaid...
The heirs are rigorous in enforcing the copyright to the sculpture, which runs until 2029, 70 years after Eriksen’s 1959 death. Several publications have been charged with copyright infringement over the years after publishing pictures of the artwork."
