Copyright in the Bazaar From the protection of drawings to the globalization of images

On February 7, 1990, US Congress passes the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act, a bill that introduces the notion of intellectual property in the field of architecture. The text makes a distinction between original and functional elements, being the former those that are protected by law. Due to the ambiguity of this distinction, the House of Representatives invited Michael Graves to clarify the difference between the 'style' (copyrightable) and the 'functionality' (not copyrightable) of a building. Following the Vitruvian triad, the author of the Disney Headquarters in Burbank explained to the representatives the difference between the 'internal' and the 'poetic' language in architecture, being the latter intrinsic to the traditions and the myths of a society that find their expression on the personal words of the architect. One of the most interesting aspects of the bill is that the distinction between utility and decorum, between function and appearance, is not translated into the dissemination formats of an architectural work protected by the copyright law; whereas buildings, drawings, plans and models are attached to the control of the architect, the 'pictorial representations' of the project (pictures, paintings or photographs) can be freely taken and distributed. Despite its anachronism, the bill can be read as a premonitory document of the type of exchange and use of information that the Digital Revolution would bring about a decade later. The emergence of the internet and digital dissemination media in the field of architecture has completely transformed the way in which architectural information is transmitted and used today -pictorial reproductions, liberated from any legal constraint, have taken over an ecosystem which is ruled by ubiquity, overproduction and instantaneity. This space of exchange, closer to a flea market than a shopping mall, fosters new use and design dynamics in architecture that are based on the recycling of the dominant products -pictures. Interestingly enough, the relentless viralization of these products is giving birth to an interesting scenario that witnesses the globalization of appearance in our discipline. From this perspective, the paper analyzes the relation between the legal conception of intellectual property in architecture and its obsolescence in the space of exchange laid out by digital dissemination platforms. As a conclusion, it poses that this obsolescence enhances the standardization of the built environment on a global scale.