This past weekend, I was in Las Vegas for a short trip, and while I should have been focused on not losing all my money to the slot machines, I found myself fixated on something else entirely: did Paris Las Vegas or New York New York have to pay licensing fees to create those massive replicas of the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty?
As it turns out, the Eiffel Tower was protected by copyright until 1993—70 years after the death of its architect, Gustave Eiffel. Since then, the structure has entered the public domain, meaning commercial use of its image (any taken after 1993) is allowed without permission. Paris Las Vegas built its replica in 1999, so it likely didn’t have to pay any licensing fees. The same goes for the Statue of Liberty, which its sculptor,r Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, registered in 1876. That copyright has long expired as well!
But the rabbit hole didn’t end there. I discovered that the sparkling lights that decorate the Eiffel Tower at night were added in 1985 and thus are still protected by copyright. So while tourists can freely share nighttime photos of the illuminated tower on social media, commercial use of those images are technically illegal without permission.
That being said, it turns out that what happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay there—especially when it involves copyright law!
Copyright & Social Media
Communications Law