At a ministerial meeting on June 30, and on the heels of a recent major art theft, French culture minister Frédéric Mitterand announced that he sent a group message to the heads of French museums, urging them to beef up security in the wake of the theft. Mitterand called for both technical and human efforts to guard artworks and underlined the importance of cataloging and documenting important pieces to dissuade would-be robbers. Via Artinfo.

A man claims he was bilked for $191,000 for phony John Lennon memorabilia. David Petersen says Hawaii-based Celebrites Galleries sold him 14 sketches and a microphone, claiming Lennon used it to record Imagine. However, it seems like the sketches and other memorabilia are fake. Via Courthouse News Service.

In what looks to be an interesting case of ethics and law, the NY Times ran an article today on the pleas by two women who allege they were forced and obligated to appear nude and topless in their father’s videos and films. The artist is Larry Rivers, and his two daughters are Emma Tamburlini (43) and her older sister, Gwynne Rivers. The artist’s foundation, the Larry Rivers Foundation, has declined Rivers’ daughters’ request to destroy the film and videos.

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Artists and rights activists have appealed to the Kremlin to put a stop to the prosecution of two curators, Yury Samodurov and Andrei Yerofeyev, but Russian prosecutors refuse to back down and have asked the presiding judge to hand down a three-year prison sentence on July 12. Why the hoopla? The curators previously included some art works in an exhibition which were thought to be inciting religious hatred. One painting depicted Jesus Christ as Mickey Mouse, another as Vladimir Lenin. The 2007 exhibit, Forbidden Art, at the Sakharov Museum, was part of an effort to fight censorship of the arts, but the Russian Orthodox Church was horrified. The curators and their lawyers believe they will be found guilty. More from the AP here.

UPDATE: July 12, 2010

Today, the two curators “were found guilty of inciting hatred by a Russian court on Monday, but the judge let them go free, after ordering them to pay fines.“

Proving once again that law and art make lovely love, Adrian Perry, son of Aerosmith legend Joe Perry, ponders the hectic yet energizing shifts that come with being a practicing lawyer in NYC and touring musician. I think Adrian’s work for an IP firm has helped. His band’s name is TAB the Band, which will make TAB the drink trademark attorneys very happy.

“It’s pretty absurd. I find myself in bizarre scenarios all the time. I remember one example of trying to get out to a show in New Haven (Connecticut), and I had to run to Grand Central (station in New York) and change (from a suit and tie) in the bathroom and then run on to the train. I had to work (on legal stuff) on the train until I got there, and my brother picked me up at the train station, and I was working in the van all the way to the gig. (After) the show, I got back in the car, and we were driving up to Boston for another show, and I just kept working.

Adrian, a Georgetown Law grad, has more thoughts on Blackberrys and what got him interested in law on Spinner and on ContactMusic. Check it out!

Peter Hirtle, from the LibraryLaw Blog, takes this July 4th to ponder why, given the ominous copyright cloud, museums and repositories would even bother getting into the licensing business. He picks up on our previous post on photographer Anne Pearse-Hocker copyright lawsuit against Firelight Media and the Smithsonian. Hirtle’s thoughts:

[T]he document reveals the kind of misunderstandings that can result when repositories get into the permissions business. To me, the most troubling portion of the document is Exhibit D, the museum’s permission form, which states that “Permission is granted for the use of the following imagery, worldwide, all media rights for the life of the project.”  Firelight is then charged $150 in permission fees for the use of the three listed images. If I was Firelight, I would assume that I was in the clear; I had worldwide rights.  What the form does not make clear is that the permission derives from the Smithsonian’s rights as the owner of the physical negatives.

He continues:

The case is a strong reminder that when making reproductions for patrons and granting permissions, repositories need to be crystal-clear about what they are doing.

Hirtle’s entire comments can be read here.

A dusty, damaged canvas discovered in the basement art collection of Yale University has been identified as a work from 17th century Spanish painter Diego Velazquez. The painting is supposed to have been painted when Velazquez was 18, and dates to 1617. The piece was originally found six years ago, but Yale officials waited until tests could verify the painting was a Velazquez. Via CBC.