Don't you dare to photograph that old chair in your living room!

The first entry for 2012 of my copyright madness gallery may be just behind (or below…) you in this very moment, in your own living room.

Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, known as “Le Corbusier”, his cousin Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand are the creators of a number of items among the “cult objects” of the 20th century, including an Armchair, an “easy-chair” and a Chaise-longue

Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand died respectively 46, 44 and 12 years ago. The three chairs mentioned above were designed at least 83 (eighty-three!) years ago. Today, copyright law is so absurd that you may not publish online pictures of those chairs. Even if they are your pictures, taken today, of “even a fraction of a Le Corbusier piece”, and even if that chair were yours, you may still be sued for those pictures, by people who didn’t design any of those objects and maybe weren’t even born when they were designed.

I am not kidding. The whole story, with links to the actual complaints filed in Court, is told here and also commented here

Please don’t let such a risk loom over your head! For your own peace of mind, please do burn today all the pieces of furniture that you bought, but for which you do not have an explicit “permission to photograph” from whoever designed them. Quick!