Opinion ID: 204752
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Is Wildflower Works copyrightable?

Text: To merit copyright protection, Wildflower Works must be an original work[ ] of authorship fixed in a[ ] tangible medium of expression . . . from which [it] can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated. 17 U.S.C. § 102(a). The district court held that although Wildflower Works was both a painting and a sculpture, it was ineligible for copyright because it lacked originality. There is a contradiction here. As we have explained, VARA supplements general copyright protection and applies only to artists who create the specific subcategories of art enumerated in the statute. VARA-eligible paintings and sculptures comprise a discrete subset of otherwise copyrightable pictorial and sculptural works; the statute designates these works of fine art as worthy of special protection. If a work is so lacking in originality that it cannot satisfy the basic requirements for copyright, then it can hardly qualify as a painting or sculpture eligible for extra protection under VARA. See Cronin, Dead on the Vine, 12 VAND. J. ENT. & TECH. L. at 239 ([I]f a work does not evince sufficient original expression to be copyrightable, the work should belong in a category other than `visual art' as this term is contemplated under VARA.). That point aside, the district court's conclusion misunderstands the originality requirement. Originality is the touchstone of copyright protection today, an implicit constitutional and explicit statutory requirement. Feist Publ'ns, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340, 347, 346, 111 S.Ct. 1282, 113 L.Ed.2d 358 (1991) (Originality is a constitutional requirement.); id. at 355 (The Copyright Act of 1976 made the originality requirement explicit.); see also Schrock, 586 F.3d at 518-19 (As a constitutional and statutory matter, `[t]he sine qua non of copyright is originality.' (quoting Feist, 499 U.S. at 345, 111 S.Ct. 1282)). Despite its centrality in our copyright regime, the threshold for originality is minimal. See Feist, 499 U.S. at 345, 111 S.Ct. 1282; Am. Dental Ass'n v. Delta Dental Plans Ass'n, 126 F.3d 977, 979 (7th Cir.1997) (The necessary degree of `originality' is low. . . .). The standard requires only that the work was independently created by the author (as opposed to copied from other works), and that it possesses at least some minimal degree of creativity. Feist, 499 U.S. at 345, 111 S.Ct. 1282 (citation omitted). The requisite level of creativity is extremely low; even a slight amount will suffice. The vast majority of works make the grade quite easily, as they possess some creative spark. Id. (citation omitted). The district court took the position that Wildflower Works was not original because Kelley was not the first person to ever conceive of and express an arrangement of growing wildflowers in ellipse-shaped enclosed area[s]. Kelley, 2008 WL 4449886, at . This mistakenly equates originality with novelty; the law is clear that a work can be original even if it is not novel. Feist, 499 U.S. at 345, 111 S.Ct. 1282 (Originality does not signify novelty; a work may be original even though it closely resembles other works so long as the similarity is fortuitous, not the result of copying.). No one argues that Wildflower Works was copied; it plainly possesses more than a little creative spark. The judge was also at a loss to discover what about the exhibit is original. Is it the elliptical design? The size? The use of native instead of non-native plants? The environmentally-sustainable gardening method to which `vegetative management system' apparently refers? Kelley, 2008 WL 4449886, at . It is true that common geometric shapes cannot be copyrighted. See U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE, COMPENDIUM II: COPYRIGHT OFFICE PRACTICES § 503.02(a)-(b) (1984); 2 PATRY § 4:17 (2010). And [i]n no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such a work. 17 U.S.C. § 102(b). The Park District suggests that Wildflower Works is an uncopyrightable method or system, and is also ineligible because its design uses simple elliptical shapes. The first of these arguments is not well-developed; the second is misplaced. Although Wildflower Works was designed to be largely self-sustaining (at least initially), it's not really a method or system at all. It's a garden. And Kelley is seeking statutory protection for the garden itself, not any supposed system of vegetative management encompassed within it. Regarding the use of elliptical shapes, an author's expressive combination or arrangement of otherwise noncopyrightable elements (like geometric shapes) may satisfy the originality requirement. Roulo v. Russ Berrie & Co., 886 F.2d 931, 939 (7th Cir.1989); 2 PATRY § 4:17 (Geometric shapes or symbols cannot themselves be protected, but an original creative arrangement of them can be.). The real impediment to copyright here is not that Wildflower Works fails the test for originality (understood as not copied and possessing some creativity) but that a living garden lacks the kind of authorship and stable fixation normally required to support copyright. Unlike originality, authorship and fixation are explicit constitutional requirements; the Copyright Clause empowers Congress to secure for authors exclusive rights in their writings. U.S. CONST. art 1, § 8, cl. 8; see also 2 PATRY § 3:20 (2010) ([T]he Constitution uses the terms `writings' and `authors;' `originality' is not used.); id. § 3:22 (2010); 1 NIMMER § 2.03[A]-[B] (2004). The originality requirement is implicit in these express limitations on the congressional copyright power. See Feist, 499 U.S. at 346, 111 S.Ct. 1282 (The constitutional reference to authors and writings presuppose[s] a degree of originality.). The Supreme Court has repeatedly construed all three terms in relation to one another [or] perhaps has collapsed them into a single concept; therefore, [w]ritings are what authors create, but for one to be an author, the writing has to be original. 2 PATRY § 3:20. Without fixation, moreover, there cannot be a `writing.' Id. § 3:22. The Nimmer treatise elaborates: Fixation in tangible form is not merely a statutory condition to copyright. It is also a constitutional necessity. That is, unless a work is reduced to tangible form it cannot be regarded as a writing within the meaning of the constitutional clause authorizing federal copyright legislation. Thus, certain works of conceptual art stand outside of copyright protection. 1 NIMMER § 2.03[B]. A work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression when its embodiment in a copy or phonorecord . . . is sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration. 17 U.S.C. § 101. As William Patry explains: Fixation serves two basic roles: (1) easing problems of proof of creation and infringement, and (2) providing the dividing line between state common law protection and protection under the federal Copyright Act, since works that are not fixed are ineligible for federal protection but may be protected under state law. The distinction between the intangible intellectual property (the work of authorship) and its fixation in a tangible medium of expression (the copy) is an old and fundamental and important one. The distinction may be understood by examples of multiple fixations of the same work: A musical composition may be embodied in sheet music, on an audio-tape, on a compact disc, on a computer hard drive or server, or as part of a motion picture soundtrack. In each of the fixations, the intangible property remains a musical composition. 2 PATRY § 3:22 (internal quotation marks omitted). Finally, authorship is an entirely human endeavor. Id. § 3:19 (2010). Authors of copyrightable works must be human; works owing their form to the forces of nature cannot be copyrighted. Id. § 3:19 n. 1; see also U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE, COMPENDIUM II: COPYRIGHT OFFICE PRACTICES § 503.03(a) ([A] work must be the product of human authorship and not the forces of nature.) (1984); id. § 202.02(b). Recognizing copyright in Wildflower Works presses too hard on these basic principles. We fully accept that the artistic community might classify Kelley's garden as a work of postmodern conceptual art. We acknowledge as well that copyright's prerequisites of authorship and fixation are broadly defined. But the law must have some limits; not all conceptual art may be copyrighted. In the ordinary copyright case, authorship and fixation are not contested; most works presented for copyright are unambiguously authored and unambiguously fixed. But this is not an ordinary case. A living garden like Wildflower Works is neither authored nor fixed in the senses required for copyright. See Toney v. L'Oreal USA, Inc., 406 F.3d 905, 910 (7th Cir.2005) (A person's likenessher personais not authored and it is not fixed.); see also Cronin, Dead on the Vine, 12 VAND. J. ENT. & TECH. L. at 227-39. Simply put, gardens are planted and cultivated, not authored. A garden's constituent elements are alive and inherently changeable, not fixed. Most of what we see and experience in a gardenthe colors, shapes, textures, and scents of the plantsoriginates in nature, not in the mind of the gardener. At any given moment in time, a garden owes most of its form and appearance to natural forces, though the gardener who plants and tends it obviously assists. All this is true of Wildflower Works, even though it was designed and planted by an artist. Of course, a human authorwhether an artist, a professional landscape designer, or an amateur backyard gardenerdetermines the initial arrangement of the plants in a garden. This is not the kind of authorship required for copyright. To the extent that seeds or seedlings can be considered a medium of expression, they originate in nature, and natural forcesnot the intellect of the gardenerdetermine their form, growth, and appearance. Moreover, a garden is simply too changeable to satisfy the primary purpose of fixation; its appearance is too inherently variable to supply a baseline for determining questions of copyright creation and infringement. If a garden can qualify as a work of authorship sufficiently embodied in a copy, at what point has fixation occurred? When the garden is newly planted? When its first blossoms appear? When it is in full bloom? Howand at what point in timeis a court to determine whether infringing copying has occurred? In contrast, when a landscape designer conceives of a plan for a garden and puts it in writingrecords it in text, diagrams, or drawings on paper or on a digital-storage devicewe can say that his intangible intellectual property has been embodied in a fixed and tangible copy. This writing is a sufficiently permanent and stable copy of the designer's intellectual expression and is vulnerable to infringing copying, giving rise to the designer's right to claim copyright. The same cannot be said of a garden, which is not a fixed copy of the gardener's intellectual property. Although the planting material is tangible and can be perceived for more than a transitory duration, it is not stable or permanent enough to be called fixed. Seeds and plants in a garden are naturally in a state of perpetual change; they germinate, grow, bloom, become dormant, and eventually die. This life cycle moves gradually, over days, weeks, and season to season, but the real barrier to copyright here is not temporal but essential. The essence of a garden is its vitality, not its fixedness. It may endure from season to season, but its nature is one of dynamic change. We are not suggesting that copyright attaches only to works that are static or fully permanent (no medium of expression lasts forever), or that artists who incorporate natural or living elements in their work can never claim copyright. Kelley compares Wildflower Works to the Crown Fountain, a sculpture by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa that sits nearby in Chicago's Millennium Park. The surfaces of Plensa's fountain are embedded with LED screens that replay recorded video images of the faces of 1,000 Chicagoans. See http://www.explorechicago.org/city/en/ things_see_do/attractions/dca_tourism/ Crown_Fountain.html (last visited Feb. 10, 2011). But the Copyright Act specifically contemplates works that incorporate or consist of sounds or images that are broadcast or transmitted electronically, such as telecasts of sporting events or other live performances, video games, and the like. See 17 U.S.C. § 101 (defining fixed as including a work consisting of sounds, images, or both, that are being transmitted. . . if a fixation of the work is being made simultaneously with its transmission); see also Balt. Orioles, Inc. v. Major League Baseball Players Ass'n, 805 F.2d 663, 675 (7th Cir.1986); Midway Mfg. Co. v. Artic Int'l, Inc., 704 F.2d 1009, 1013-14 (7th Cir.1983). Wildflower Works does not fit in this category; the Crown Fountain is not analogous. Though not addressing the requirement of fixation directly, the district court compared Wildflower Works to [t]he mobiles of Alexander Calder and Jeff Koons' `Puppy,' a 43-foot flowering topiary. Kelley, 2008 WL 4449886, at . These analogies are also inapt. Although the aesthetic effect of a Calder mobile is attributable in part to its subtle movement in response to air currents, see http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Alexander_Calder (last visited Feb. 10, 2011), the mobile itself is obviously fixed and stable. In Puppy the artist assembled a huge metal frame in the shape of a puppy and covered it with thousands of blooming flowers sustained by an irrigation system within the frame. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Koons (last visited Feb. 10, 2011). This may be sufficient fixation for copyright (we venture no opinion on the question), but Wildflower Works is quite different. It is quintessentially a garden; Puppy is not. In short, Wildflower Works presents serious problems of authorship and fixation that these and other examples of conceptual or kinetic art do not. Because Kelley's garden is neither authored nor fixed in the senses required for basic copyright, it cannot qualify for moralrights protection under VARA.