As I prepare for a trip to Vienna for next week’s International Bar Association Annual Meeting, there is some topical restitution news, but it is hardly good. The imminent incarceration of Stephan Templ, a journalist and historian, for the omission of another relative from his mother’s application for Holocaust compensation, is as bizarre as it is disheartening. One hopes that a pardon, his last available recourse, will soon be forthcoming.

Topics: Maria Altmann, Reibpartie, Robert Amsterdam, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, Der Standard, Stephan Templ, Nazi Looting, Scrubbing Parties, Ringstrasse, Ambassador Manz, Museum of Modern Art, Holocaust, Beethoven Frieze, Lothar Furth, Unser Wien: “Arisierung” auf österreichisch, Heinz Fischer, Restitution, Elisabeth Kretschmer, National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victi, Egon Schiele, World War II, Eva Blimlinger, Portrait of Wally, Austria, The Missing Image, Natural History Museum, Ruth Beckermann, Gustav Klimt, Albertinaplatz, Our Vienna: “Aryanization” Austrian Style, Kurt Hankiewicz, Vienna, Anschluss, Baldur von Schirach, Limbach Commission, International Bar Association, Tina Walzer

I am looking forward to participating next month in a symposium entitled :"Ethics and Cultural Patrimony: Viewpoints" at L'Ecole du Louvre in Paris on October 20-21, 2015. The event is organized by L’Institut Droit Ethique Patrimoine (Institute of Law, Ethics and Heritage), in partnership with l’Institut d’Etudes de droit public (Institute of Public Law Studies) and l’Ecole du Louvre, and take place at the Ecole du Louvre, Palais du Louvre, porte Jaujard, place du Carrousel, 75001 Paris. The conference website (with registration) can be found here, and the brochure can be opened here.

Topics: Bordeaux University Montaigne, cultural property, Lafferière-François Julien, Denis Michel Boëll, Ecole du Louvre, National Consultative Ethics Committee, Deaccession, Schwabinger Kunstfund, Marie Cornu, James Bradburne, Geraldine Goffaux Callebau, Musée de la Marine, Council of Voluntary Sales, Tehran, Astrid Müller-Katzenberg, Baptiste Brown, Conservation, ICOM, Marie Berducou, Stéphane Duroy, University of Toulouse Capitole, National Heritage Institute, Michel Van Praët, University of Shahid Beheshti, Paris, Philippe Durey, Arnaud Beaufort, University of Poitiers, University Western Bretagne, Nathalie Heinich, Milan, Julien Chapuis, Pinacoteca di Brera, French National Commission for UNESCO, Philippe-Henri Dutheil, University Rennes, Vincent Negri, Durey Philippe, Céline Castets- Fox, Gurlitt, Restitution, Sophie Vigneron, Bittoun Jacques, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Events, University Institute of France, University of Kent, Museum for Byzantine Sculpture Collections and Art, National Library of France, Center for Research and Restoration of Museums of, Noëlle Timbart, Chadelat Catherine, Dominique Jarrassé, Claire Barbillon, Janicot Daniel, Gilles Ragot, University of Montreal, State Museums in Berlin, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, International Society For Law Research of Cultural, Edouard Planche, Emmanuelle Polack, Fromageau Jérôme, Université Paris Sud, EY Société d’avocats, Gautrais Vincent, Janet Blake

In a year that began with the vagaries of Left Shark, we have our most bizarre art law story of 2015—so far. Last year, the United States Copyright Office released a public draft of the Third Edition of the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices. Among the new items that leapt out at practitioners was the section of examples of non-copyrightable works, which included “A photograph taken by a monkey.” The Copyright Office was inspired to include this example because of a 2011 photograph taken by British nature photographer David Slater. A crested black macaque picked up Slater’s camera and pressed the shutter button, and the result became known as the “monkey selfie.” While as I said at the time, I thought the point was debatable to the extent that Slater could intentionally have left the camera within reach of the animal the same way that leaving something exposed to nature could still result in a copyrightable work, the question was obviously (I thought) limited to whether or not Slater could restrict reproduction of the work as the author.

Topics: Left Shark, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Blurb, Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, Wildlife Personalities., PETA, David Slater, Copyright, United States Copyright Office, Litigation

Back in June, sculptor Anish Kapoor installed the sculpture Dirty Corner on the grounds of the famous palace there. Kapoor, who can’t seem to avoid public controversy over his work, saw the sculpture first become the object of debate with regard to its form itself, specifically, the suggestion that the shape of the large work was anatomical. Kapoor coyly fostered speculations about what it was meant to represent, but ultimately demurred that his “work has multiple interpretive possibilities." With recent vandalism and a court order that he remove the graffiti, however, the story has turned into one more about free expression and compelled speech. So far, it does not have a happy ending.

Topics: Rock Fan, Versailles, The Art Newspaper, Fabien Bouglé, Ku Klux Klan, Dirty Corner, Graffiti Art, France, Williams College, Fleur Pellerin, Nazis, Palace of Versailles, Confederate Flag, Richard Serra, Catherine Pégard, refugee crisis, Williams College Museum of Art, First Amendment, Yardbird Suite, Anish Kapoor, François Hollande, vandalism, anti-Semitic, Graffiti, Amherst College, Tilted Arc

Topics: cultural property, Georg Baselitz, German Cultural Ministry, U.S., Restitution, UNESCO, Switzerland, Austria, Kulturgutschutzgesetz, Gerhard Richter, Museums, Andy Warhol, Monika Grütters, Cultural Heritage Protection, Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation, NAGPRA

After putting on hold its prior recommendation back in March of this year, the United Kingdom Spoliation Advisory Panel has recommended that the Tate Gallery in London should return Beaching a Boat, Brighton by John Constable to heirs of Budapest-based (and Jewish) Baron Ferenc Hatvany. The Art Newspaper reports that the Spoliation Panel concluded that the 1946 export license at issue in the springtime uncertainty (located from the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts) was insufficient to overcome the conclusion that title to the looted painting had not passed lawfully.

Topics: John Constable, Soviet, Budapest, Worcestershire, Hungary, London, The Art Newspaper, Beaching a Boat Brighton, Nazi-looted art, Red Army, Mrs P.M. Rainsford, Broadway Art Gallery, Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, Restitution, World War II, Baron Ferenc Hatvany, Tate Gallery, Museums, United Kingdom Spoliation Advisory Panel

Topics: Heather Gray, Studio Legale Jacobacci & Associati, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz P.C., Howard Spiegler, ARIS Title Insurance Corporation, John Cahill, Diana Wierbicki, Inc., Gary S. Castle, Baker & McKenzie, Art Law Day, Elysium Management LLC, Judith Pearson, Huntington T. Block, Linda Sandell, Gurr Johns, Adria Hillman, Lori Spector Fine Art, Ann-Marie Richard, Amy Goldrich, Marnin Michaels, Events, Massimo Sterpi, Elizabeth von Habsburg, Cahill Partners LLP, Ronald Minkoff, Robert Suiter, Herrick Feinstein LLP, Anchin Block & Anchin LLP, Zürich, Winston Art Group, Withers Bergman LLP, Lori Spector

Topics: Latvia, Sberbank, Nazi Germany, Russian State Military Archive, Menachem Schneerson, Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass Communication, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Rebbe, 28 U.S.C. § 1603, Russian Federation, FSIA, Restitution, Russian State Library, World War II, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Poland, Chabad Lubavitch, Soviet Union, Museums

Topics: National Cultural Heritage Law Moot Court Competit, Everett M. Dirksen United States Courthouse, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Chicago, Greece, Parthenon Marbles, DePaul University College of Law, British Museum, Events, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Illinois, Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservat

A few weeks ago some interesting speculation started circulating about the possibility of a new forgery operation in Germany, which was home to the now-infamous Wolfgang Beltracchi. Beltracchi successfully fooled buyers for years with forged Expressionist and Modernist paintings, going so far as to invent a fictional “Jäger Collection” (including a staged photograph of Beltracchi’s wife purporting to show a painting on the wall of an ancestors home). The most interesting thing about the current story is that it is impossible to tell yet whether there is really a problem; the most detailed efforts to date have been unable to confirm whether Kurt Waldmann, the artist in question, even existed. Many of the indicia of concern are there, but they are hardly conclusive.

Topics: Jäger Collection, Kurt Waldmann, Brussels, Forgery, “Künstliche Tatsachen / Boundary Objects", authentication, authenticity, Pascal Polar, Strasbourg, Bauhaus, Dada, Berlin Wall, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Jean Milossis, Wolfgang Beltracchi, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Kunsthaus Dresden, Museums, Berliner Kurier