In February 2022, Berlingske was sentenced by the Eastern High Court to pay DKK 300.000 plus court costs to the heirs of the mermaid sculptor Edvard Eriksen. The reason was that Berlingske, as an illustration of evil in Danish society, had brought a drawing of The Little Mermaid with owlish hair, a zombie face and a torn Dannebrog in her hand. The drawing was featured on the front page of the newspaper's debate section. In addition, in April 2020 the newspaper carried a photo of the statue with a mask, on the occasion of the corona shutdown.
The judgment was appealed to the Supreme Court, which had to decide, among other things, whether the drawing was an independent work, or whether the drawing was, on other grounds, a parody or caricature that did not infringe copyright.
The Supreme Court ruled that a parody principle applies in Danish copyright law. The principle rests on a firm Danish and shared Nordic tradition with support in the preparatory work for the Copyright Act and case law. The Supreme Court also determined that parodies can be considered independent works, and that this applies even when the parody is very close, and whether the parody is directed at the original work itself or at something else.
Klaus Pedersen, head of the secretariat of the Visual Artists Association, who was critical of the Eastern High Court's judgment, is pleased:
"Of course, artists' works must be protected by copyright. But the judgment from the Eastern High Court went too far, in our opinion, and was completely out of line with what we have seen so far from cases in this area. Caricatures are an important part of our culture, and therefore we are pleased that the Supreme Court has concluded that neither the caricature nor the photograph of The Little Mermaid with a mask infringed the copyright of the heirs," he says.
Photo at top: Scanpix