German film-maker Wim Wenders has said sorry for taking a photograph of a view that a tribe of Australian Aborigines says is for their eyes only.
The traditional owners of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park near Alice Springs have accepted the apology, and welcomed the removal of the offending landscape image from a Sydney exhibition of Wenders' still photography.
The snap, Valley of the Winds, was in breach of government regulations passed three-years ago that seek to give Australia's indigenous people intellectual property rights over the commercial use of iconic images like Uluru, the massive monolith that draws 400,000 tourists every year.
Uluru, formerly called Ayers Rock, rises 300m above the desert sands and has a circumference of 8km. It's the world's most famous rock.
Artistic freedom
Some think Wenders should have stood his ground. The offending image was taken before the regulations were in place. The fine, they say, might have been a small price to pay for artistic freedom.
Alan and Patricia Campbell, authors of a popular series of children's books featuring a toy bear called Bromley, take a different line.
They have vowed to go to court to keep their book Bromley Climbs Uluru on the shelves. The cover of the book, which was first published in 1993, depicts the cuddly bear atop Uluru. The Anangu want the book pulped. They say it doesn't matter that the photo on the cover was taken seven years before the new rules came into force.
Everyone agrees it is impossible to stop tourists taking pictures of the 40 percent of Uluru that regulations place off limits.
Some say it might also be impossible to prosecute those like Wenders and the Campbells whom the Anangu say have broken the rules.
A challenge
Environment Minister David Kemp has declined to fund an action against the Campbells. A government-funded prosecution, he said, "was not appropriate given the importance of principles of freedom of expression in our society."
Some challenge Kemp's view. They note that the owners of Sydney's iconic Opera House are happy to take legal action against commercial enterprises that infringe their copyright over images of the world-famous building.
The argument comes down to this: It's possible to establish property rights over images of a building, but is it possible to have copyright over creation? For example, would the world accept the people of Nepal putting photography of Everest out of bounds?
Some suspect that money, not culture, is at the heart of the issue.
The Anangu already get 25 percent of the gate takings from tourists who enter the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. This means they are taking money from people they know snap photos they say they shouldn't.
And by taking a cut of the gate money, aren't the Anangu being disingenuous when they appeal to tourists not to climb the rock out of respect for its spiritual being?
Lawyers say a test case against the Campbells would likely fail because the couple could point to instances where commercial considerations seemed to override spiritual ones.
For example, national airline Qantas was permitted to photograph a television commercial inside a no-go area of the park after it paid out a fat fee dressed up as a sponsorship payment.
Graeme Calma, the top indigenous representative on the park committee, is happy that Wenders has volunteered to pull the offending photograph.
Now he wants the Campbells to echo that respect and take Bromley Climbs Uluru off the shelves.
Said Calma: "The book is an insult because there's a teddy bear up there, and that is not true to our culture. He looks as though he is having a go at our culture. This is all about respect."
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