A Work of Art

From the no such thing as bad publicity department, the Italian Culture minister is threatening legal action against Illinois-based Armalite for using images of the Statue of David in an advertising campaign. I don’t know if Armalite has any presence in Italy, but I doubt it, meaning the Italian government will have to bring suit in the US.

Since we have this little thing called the First Amendment in the United States, they won’t be able to bring suit in this country on their stated grounds, which is that they own any image of the State of David. This pant wetting episode on the part of the Italian government is only giving Armalite free publicity. If they aren’t popping champaign corks in Genesco over this, they ought to be.

I’m wondering, since this is appearing in the UK media, how many people will smugly suggest they are glad to live in UK, where such menacing weapons are of course illegal, without realizing that the AR-50A1 is as legal as grandpa’s deer rifle in the UK, as long as you have a Firearms Certificate (FAC).

Related posts (automatically generated):

  1. On Armalite
  2. Len Savage On Lou Dobbs
  3. Victory in Heller!

7 thoughts on “A Work of Art”

  2. I’m sure this is a frivolous claim, but, it does make me wonder where it stands with regard to international copyright law. If it had any basis at all, what would stop some country from saying it “owned” all graphic renderings of everything in their country?

  3. Heard the story on NPR today. They also forgot to mention the copyright is in Italy and not the US.

    1. Italian copyright law provides that the term of copyright is the life of the author plus 70 years.

      Lets see …. Michelangelo died in 1564 … lemme do some math here …. carry the ‘3’ …

      Uh, yeah. Public domain in Italy too.

  4. We should counter sue Italy on the grounds that pizza makes Americans fat. Oh they had nothing to do with American modifications and consumption? They had nothing to do with Michaelangelo’s art either.

  5. I have a friend who has one of these Armalites. They are cool rifles with a well-engineered muzzle break. It really diverts the recoil.

    As to the Italian government, let them sue and let Armalite use the publicity to sell even more of these rifles.

  6. If Armalite is going to arm a statue they should start with Antioch’s Venus de Milo.

Comments are closed.