Does A French Copyright Odour Anything?

The FIAC, the international fair of contemporary art, but ended inward Paris. Its visitors were able to see a drinking glass cube, the OSNI, placed on laissez passer on of the Pavilion of the Palais de Tokyo. OSNI stands for Objet Sentant Non Identifié, ‘Unidentified Scented Object’ in addition to was created yesteryear Mathilde Laurent, a perfumer for Cartier, along amongst Munich climate engineers Transsolar.

Visitors entering the cube were able to become upward a staircase through a cloud of the Cartier L’Envol (The Flight) perfume. The cloud is clearly seen to viewers exterior OSNI. The fact that the perfume tin last seen is every bit of import every bit it tin last smelled.

This installation led French periodical Télérama to inquire the question: can perfume last a function of art? Modernist called it “[a] true olfactory in addition to immersive artistic function that presents a completely novel agency of using odour every bit a medium of creation.”

Wallpaper quotes Mathilde Laurent every bit maxim “I’m non an artist…but…I experience that to practise a slice similar this is our duty every bit a household because it’s of import that nosotros sustain olfactory fine art similar all others.”

Could OSNI last a function of art? Is at that topographic point such affair every bit olfactory art?

Perfume is non protected yesteryear French copyright.

Even though article L.112-1 of the Intellectual Property Code clearly provides that its provisions “ protect the rights of authors on all works of the mind, regardless of genre, shape of expression, merit or destination,” perfumes are non protected yesteryear French copyright, the droit d’auteur. The Cour de Cassation, France’s highest civil court, ruled inward 2008 that “the fragrance of a perfume, which proceeds from the unproblematic implementation of a know-how, does non industrial plant life the creation of a shape of human face that tin practise goodness from the protection of copyright”. Therefore, L’Envol is non protected yesteryear copyright.

However, OSNI is agency to a greater extent than than a perfume. It is an fine art installation, amongst which visitors are interacting.

Does French Republic protect surgical procedure art?

OSNI’s visitors were able to become upward in addition to downward the staircase within the cube, in addition to were seen from outside. Were they business office of the performance? Were their reactions to the scented air business office of the performance?

France recognizes that an artistic surgical procedure may last protected, non yesteryear copyright law, however, but yesteryear the correct inward one’s image. Reproductions of an artistic performance, such every bit photographs taken of it, are, however, protected yesteryear the droit d’auteur. In that illustration the surgical procedure creative soul in addition to the lensman are co-authors, Paris Court of Appeals, 4^th Chamber B, Dec 3, 2004.

Is the perfume an chemical percentage of the protected work, the cube?

If perfume tin non last protected every bit a scent, could it last protected every bit a function of art? The perfume is clearly seen here, in addition to tin last smelled entirely if 1 is within OSNI. Viewers from exterior cannot odour it, but they tin come across the agency the cloud of perfume moves within the cube.

The cube tin last considered a sculpture, and, every bit such, protected yesteryear the droit d’auteur. The scent is business office of it in addition to hence protected every bit an chemical percentage of the sculpture, but silent does non attain private protection. However, 1 could imagine that if Cartier were to sell OSNI to an fine art collector, who would in addition to then supplant the scent amongst the 1 of his favorite aftershave, this would last copyright in addition to droit moral infringement, in addition to would conjure the final result of whether perfume is protected yesteryear the droit d’auteur out of the (crystal) bottle.