The Fearless Girl is a sculpture that was installed on 07 March 2017 in anticipation of International Women’s Day. The sculpture is located across the New York Stock Exchange Building. The aim or purpose of the sculptor was to represent women empowerment. The sculpture was created by Kristen Visbal and commissioned by State Street Global Advisors (SSGA).
The Fearless Girl was initially located at Bowling Green, at the intersection of Broadway and Morris Street, facing the Charging Bull statue. The Fearless Girl statue was esteemed by many who saw its valour to symbolize women empowerment as it stood defiantly in front of a Charging Bull. Others viewed the statue as sending a message about workplace diversity and encouraging companies to recruit women to their boards.
The erection and placement of the Fearless Girl was met with much praise and some criticism. In 1987, Arturo Di Modica created a very well-known sculpture called the Charging Bull. The Charging Bull is situated on Broadway. The Charging Bull has been said to be the symbol of aggressive financial optimism and prosperity. Shortly after the sculpture was set up, it became an instant tourist attraction. It is one of the most photographed artworks in New York.
Di Modica’s claimed that Fearless Girl infringes on his copyright. The Fearless Girl looks nothing like the Charging Bull, so di Modica claimed that the Fearless Girl of being derivative work of his charging bull sculptor. A derivative work is a new work original product that includes aspects of preexisting copyrighted work. An example of this would be the Da Vinci code, it was a movie based on a book.
Copyright affords creators/authors moral and economic rights. Economic rights allow the author to exploit the work financially, moral rights, on the other hand, protect the creators/authors non-economic interests. Moral rights afford the creator the right to:
· attribution — the right to be recognized as the author of a work;
· object to false attribution — the right not to be named as the author of a work that you did not create;
· object to derogatory treatment of a work — in some countries copyright owners can object to any addition, deletion, alteration to or adaptation of a work that would distort or mutilate the work, or that negatively affects the honour or reputation of the author; and
· decide whether his/her work should be published and in what form.[1]
Di Modica claimed that the fearless girl altered the intended meaning of his sculpture without permission. Di Modica claimed that by placing the fearless girl statue in opposition to the charging bull, the integrity of the Bull was undermined.
Di Modica’s lawyers stated that:
“Fearless Girl” because it is placed in a way that makes it seem like she is bravely facing a giant bull that is significantly bigger in size. Additionally, just like the Charging Bull, the Fearless Girl is also made out of bronze thus making it seem like an extension to the earlier statue of the bull.”[2]
Was the Fearless Girl derivative work of the Charging Bull? The short answer is no. For the Fearless Girl to have constituted a derivative work, it had to have been derived from pre-existing work, in this case, the Charging Bull. Common derivative works include translations, screenplays based on novels etc. As we can see in the image above, there is no conversion of the Charging Bull into an altered form. The Fearless Girl close proximity to the Charging Bull does not mean that the idea of the Fearless Girl was based on the charging bull sculpture.
Does the Fearless Girl change the meaning of the Charging Bull?
Yeah, sure it does, however, the conceptual change of meaning behind the Charging Bull does not equate to the intentional distortion, mutilation or other modification of Di Modica’s work. The right of integrity refers to physical integrity, and the placement of the Fearless Girl poses no threat to the Charging Bull’s physical integrity.
Conclusion
Following the complaints from Di Modica, the fearless girl was moved to a new home. Unlike the man who can’t be moved, unfortunately, the Fearless Girl was.
[1] https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2018/02/article_0003.html
[2] https://spicyip.com/2017/05/spicyip-fellowship-2017-18-the-charging-bull-v-fearless-girl-controversy-part-i.html
