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Images of the Eiffel Tower have long been in the public domain; however in 2003, the operating company SNTE installed a new lighting display on the tower, the design of which they then copyrighted. The effect was to put the night-time image of the tower under copyright. It follows that it is no longer legal to publish contemporary photographs of the lighted tower without permission.

The imposition of copyright is not without some controversy. The Director of Documentation for SNTE, Stéphane Dieu, fatuously commented in January 2005: "It is really just a way to manage commercial use of the image, so that it isn't used in ways we don't approve". However, it potentially has the effect of prohibiting tourist photographs of the tower at night from being published.
Some critics have pointed out that the free use of pictures of the tower constitutes the best sort of advertising that the City of Paris could possibly have to attract tourist. Others made derogatory comments about the egocentric French not knowing which side of their baguette is buttered. However, those of us who cotton on the French best know that they don't butter their bread.
Unfortunately, we are unable to reprint the vast majority of

words contained therein. Let it suffice that, although Eiffel himself thought about commercializing the image, his better sense caused him to give up his commercial rights, letting the image fall into the public domain.

In a recent decision, the French Court of Cassation ruled that an architect could not claim copyright over images that include one building, the design of which they held the copyright for, if the photograph encompasses a larger area. This seems to indicate that SNTE cannot claim copyright on photographs of Paris incorporating the lighted tower at night. Imagine what would happen to their 'copyright' set of rights should there be a glimpse of clouds, blue sky, trees, buildings, airplanes, etc. in the picture.

The French court, acting on behalf of all the non-bureaucratic, non-narcissistic French, and a generally intelligent world, saw the folly of it all.

Amusez-vous SNTE.

                         Biography, Alexandre Gustave Eiffel

Birth

Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was born in Dijon France in 1832. He graduated from the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, Paris in 1855 and joined a Belgian firm which specialized in railway equipment. He established an independent practice in 1864 after which he established a career as an engineer-contractor.