Does it? Or does it vary by country? Or perhaps non copyright-specific legislation.
A certain brand of beer lifted the Mexican coat of arms almost in its entirety and used it in their label. Somebody on Facebook (I know, I know), said that it was a violation of copyright. I have my doubts, but I am open to be proven wrong.
What say The Dope?
National flags are certainly not protected by copyright.
I suspect that coats of arms aren’t either (and I know some aren’t), but many countries have separate regulations specifically on how public emblems may be used.
So while it may not be a copyright violation to appropriate the Mexican arms for private commercial purposes, it may still be illegal in Mexico.
Interestingly, federal regulation of using the US Flag for commercial purposes is limited to the District of Columbia.
[QUOTE=USC 4, Chapter 1, Section 3]
Any person who, within the District of Columbia, in any manner, for exhibition or display, shall place or cause to be placed any word, figure, mark, picture, design, drawing, or any advertisement of any nature upon any flag, standard, colors, or ensign of the United States of America; or shall expose or cause to be exposed to public view any such flag, standard, colors, or ensign upon which shall have been printed, painted, or otherwise placed, or to which shall be attached, appended, affixed, or annexed any word, figure, mark, picture, design, or drawing, or any advertisement of any nature; or who, within the District of Columbia, shall manufacture, sell, expose for sale, or to public view, or give away or have in possession for sale, or to be given away or for use for any purpose, any article or substance being an article of merchandise, or a receptacle for merchandise or article or thing for carrying or transporting merchandise, upon which shall have been printed, painted, attached, or otherwise placed a representation of any such flag, standard, colors, or ensign, to advertise, call attention to, decorate, mark, or distinguish the article or substance on which so placed shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $100 or by imprisonment for not more than thirty days, or both, in the discretion of the court. The words ‘flag, standard, colors, or ensign’, as used herein, shall include any flag, standard, colors, ensign, or any picture or representation of either, or of any part or parts of either, made of any substance or represented on any substance, of any size evidently purporting to be either of said flag, standard, colors, or ensign of the United States of America or a picture or a representation of either, upon which shall be shown the colors, the stars and the stripes, in any number of either thereof, or of any part or parts of either, by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag, colors, standard, or ensign of the United States of America.
[/QUOTE]
If flags or coats of arms were protected, it would almost certainly not be by copyright. They are more like an identifying mark so the logical protection would be by trademark or service mark. Or of course a specific law
In many cases the copyright would have expired even if they had been originally copyrighted. The current US flag dates from July 4, 1960 so it would be within copyright unless the change from 48 to 49 to 50 stars was not considered meaningful enough.
Can you even publish a description of what something looks like and copyright everything that fits that description? If I say that my flag is green with a bear and mongoose fighting over a wheel of swiss cheese, would I hold any kind of copyright on someone else’s original drawing of that subject?
Small quibble: Works created by the US Federal government are not covered by US copyright law, although the government can acquire copyrights owned by others.
So, if some government bureaucrat designed the flag, no copyright.
If the government purchased the rights to the flag from Betsy Ross VI, copyright.
ETA: Of course, under the law in 1960, they would potentially have lost the copyright if they didn’t use the appropriate copyright notices on the flags.
The thing the government made in 1960 was just words on a page. The thing you see on a pole was designed by somebody else according to those words.
Right. As I like to point out, there is no official provision or requirement that the stars should be in rows.
Actually, I just noticed that there’s a reference to an attachment that gives “the positions of the stars in the union of the flag and in the union jack” in the 1960 executive order, but it’s not included on that page.
By gum you’re right. I wonder if that language was new in 1960. Nothing of the sort was present before 1890, for sure.
So that holds for the design authorized by Eisenhower’s order. A potential 51-star design could still go circular or otherwise with the stars, if not proscribed at the time.
