2007 / 2008, experimental intervention, Joachim Stein in collaboration with Hans Finckh and (involuntarily) Meissner & Meissner Lawyers
Despite knowing of their aggressive way of defending copy right, I used Stadtplandienst.de, a german map service in my tautological exercise # 1, “Running Myself“. I mostly chose it for its official sounding name which was more important to me than the the service itself. It was a conscious choice to use Stadtplandienst and not Google Maps, which offered a more complete service for free.
In November 2007 I received a letter from Stadtplandienst’s lawyers, asking me to pay a €225,00 license fees for using the map.
On April 1, 2008 (this is no joke) a hearing took place at Amtsgericht Charlottenburg. I defended myself arguing that my artistic freedom was compromised if i was not allowed to use Stadtplandienst the way I did and that my artistic freedom was more important than the copyright claimed by Stadtplandienst.
Based on the english translation of a transcript, the courtroom scene was filmed in Second Life using synthetic voices, mildly modified standard avatars and a 3D model of a courtroom loosely inspired by Amtsgericht Charlottenburg.
Downloads (correspondence with Meissner & Meissner lawyers):
- Letter by Meissner & Meissner, copyright violation (PDF, German, 2.1 MB)
- example decision (PDF, 3.6MB)
- declaration of discontinuance (prepared form, PDF, German, 5.7MB)
- declaration of discontinuance modified (PDF, German, 5.7MB)
Please also see: Pecha Kucha Presentation July 29 2008 – Stadtplandienst vs Me