Meijer Gardens, American Horse, Statue copyright
Hi Asher196. I have come here to follow up with you about Image:MeijerGardensAmericanHorse.jpg‎. I used to contribute a lot of images to wikipedia, back about a year and a half ago I would make trips to specific locations to take high quality pictures for inclusion on Wikipedia. In doing so, I learned more about copyright of photography than most lawyers do (because most lawyers do not work in the copyright space). Suffice to say that your perception of image copyright is an incorrect one. A summary of image copyright has been written elsewhere far better than I can try here, but i am so out of practice on WP I cannot find it. First, please carefully read the copyright template that I have placed upon this image. The image is copyrighted because it is a 2d representation of a 3d statue. Statues, just like paintings, soda can artwork, music and movies are copyrightable. As such, one cannot make derivitives of that work that one can license (i.e. take a picture). If one takes a photograph of a statue, the original copyright holder still retains rights over that image, rights that can only be bent through the implying the fair use provisions of copyright law.

I was involved in a rather epic struggle between good (fair use) and evil (anti-copyright) people on Wikipedia, one that we sadly lost because this project is dominated by people who are so leftist and anti establishment that they desire nothing short of completely free. Sadly, this is a battle my side eventually was overcome by noise and numbers generally, but even these nazi's must admit defeat in the face of being able to include photographs of statues. There is no other option. One simply cannot create public domain or freely licensable photographs of statues. I hope this post brings to you a greater understanding of copyright of images and will serve you in your future editing.