From: flick harrison (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Jul 09 2007 - 23:07:16 PDT
Robert Lederman is a guy I get emails from in New York - a street
artist advocate.
He's been fighting through the Giuliani period and into the present
against artist permits of any kind, as well as the harassment of
street artists by the NYPD in violation of constitutional rulings
that make public art sales a free speech / 1st amendment right.
(I chopped this email down because frameworks rejected it - contact
me if you need the rest).
* FLICK's WEBSITE:
http://www.flickharrison.com
* MYSPACE:
http://myspace.com/flickharrison
* BLOG / NEWS:
http://zeroforconduct.blogspot.com
Begin forwarded message:
From: email suppressed
Date: June 30, 2007 2:31:05 AM PDT (CA)
To: email suppressed
Subject: Digest Number 715
Reply-To: No Reply <email suppressed>
Street Artist, New York City
Messages In This Digest (2 Messages)
1.IMPORTANT: City seeks permit for photography, film on public
propert From: Robert Lederman2.contact Mayor's office of film re:
permit to use camera From: Robert Lederman
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Messages
1.IMPORTANT: City seeks permit for photography, film on public
propertPosted by: "Robert Lederman" email suppressed
robertlederman2001Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:46 am (PST)
IMPORTANT: City seeks permit for photography, film on public property
see: NY Times 7/28/07 below RL commentary...
The Bloomberg administration is about to make a major move against
First Amendment rights. I urge all ARTIST members to take personal
responsibility to individually do everything they can to fight this,
publicize it and expose it.
They are now proposing a permit requirement to use (or possibly even
carry) a still or video camera on public property. This may be a
response by the NYPD to ARTIST members videotaping their illegal
enforcement actions and to similar controversies about activists
videotaping the NYPD.
As you may recall, just a few weeks ago the NYPD responded to my FOIL
request on the legality of videotaping the police. You can read their
response stating it is 100% legal to videotape, photograph or record
the police without needing their permission in the FILES section of
the ARTIST website under the title,
Legal to videotape photograph police.pdf
SEE: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NYCStreetArtists/files
Below my comments and a NY Times article on this are some email
suggestions for who to contact...just few of the thousands you should
contact. Putting signs on your display is one of the best ways to get
public attention for this issue.
If street artists take an active position on this it will help remind
city officials to not mess with our rights. If we don't take an active
position, who will?
If such a rule or law were to go into effect in NYC it would have
a very direct effect on artists of all kinds, on protesters, on anyone
daring to document NYPD abuses and so on. Do not let the casual way
the NY Times is presenting this story trick you into believing you are
getting the real story. In particular, beware of assuming that the NY
Civil Liberties Union is on the case and will adequately protect your
right to carry and use a camera on public property. They are major
permit advocates. The NYCLU suggested to the city to put an artist
permit in effect which led to us eventually suing the city to get rid
of it.
Use of a camera is no different from use of a paintbrush, pen computer
keyboard, or cellphone. All are fully protected by freedom of speech.
They should be no permit requirement regardless of how readily
available that permit is,how many there are or how cheap it is
(including for free!). Even if a permit took one minute to obtain and
was free that would violate freedom of speech as well as being just
enough of a time delay to prevent someone from
spontaneously videotaping police misconduct.
Can you imagine filling out a permit application from the NYPD to
videotape their illegal actions? How many people would dare to apply?
As in many instances the permit requirement is put in place simply to
give city officials a means of denying a permit, as is clearly the
agenda in this case.
A permit requirement to use a video camera will bring NYC a big step
closer to bringing back an artist permit. Please take this seriously
and respond actively.
Robert Lederman
ARTIST VIDEOS
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=artistpres
ARTIST WEBSITE (current)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NYCStreetArtists/
Lederman anti-Giuliani essays from 1994-2001
http://www.bluecollarpolitics.com/lederman/
ARTIST WEBSITE (pre 2000)
contains early posts etc.
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
NYC VENDING LAWS
A link to the entire NYC vending law with legal citations of special
value to street artists.
http://www.savefile.com/files/519498
At the page click on the orange button in the lower right hand part of
the page that says
NYC Vending Law with legal citations DOWNLOAD
Be patient, it's a 50 page PDF file.
NYC street furniture
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NYCstreetfurniture/
FOR VIDEOS OF ARTIST ARRESTS, CONFISCATIONS and SPEECHES GO TO:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=artistpres
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/nyregion/29camera.html?th&emc=th
NY Times
June 29, 2007
City May Seek Permit and Insurance for Many Kinds of Public Photography
By RAY RIVERA
Some tourists, amateur photographers, even would-be filmmakers hoping
to make it big on YouTube could soon be forced to obtain a city permit
and $1 million in liability insurance before taking pictures or
filming on city property, including sidewalks.
New rules being considered by the Mayor's Office of Film, Theater and
Broadcasting would require any group of two or more people who want to
use a camera in a single public location for more than a half hour to
get a city permit and insurance.
The same requirements would apply to any group of five or more people
who plan to use a tripod in a public location for more than 10
minutes, including the time it takes to set up the equipment.
(truncated by flick harrison)
2.contact Mayor's office of film re: permit to use cameraPosted by:
"Robert Lederman" email suppressed robertlederman2001Fri Jun
29, 2007 3:41 pm (PST)
Go to this page
http://www.nyc.gov/html/film/html/index/index.shtml
click on
Contact Us
Let them hear from you!
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.