17 U.S.C. § 113 — Scope of exclusive rights in pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works

(a) Subject to (b) and (c), the exclusive right to reproduce a copyrighted pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work in copies under section 106 includes the right to reproduce it in or on any kind of article, whether useful or not. (b) This title does not give the owner of copyright in a work portraying a "useful article" any greater or lesser rights over making, distributing, or displaying that useful article than the law — title 17, common law, or state law, as it stood on December 31, 1977 — already gave, as courts have applied and interpreted it. (c) If a useful article has been lawfully reproduced and offered for sale or other distribution to the public, the copyright does not stop anyone from making, distributing, or displaying pictures or photographs of that article in ads or commentary about its distribution or display, or in news reports. (d)(1) If (A) a work of visual art has been built into a building in a way that removing it would destroy, distort, mutilate, or otherwise modify the work, as described in section 106A(a)(3), and (B) the artist agreed to the installation — either before the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990's effective date, or afterward in a written agreement signed by both the building's owner and the artist that specifically says removal may destroy, distort, mutilate, or modify the work — then the artist's rights under section 106A(a)(2) and (3) do not apply. (2) If a building's owner wants to remove a work of visual art that is part of the building and that CAN be removed without destroying, distorting, mutilating, or modifying it, the artist's rights under section 106A(a)(2) and (3) still apply, unless (A) the owner made a diligent, good-faith attempt, without success, to notify the artist of the planned removal; or (B) the owner did give written notice, and the artist, within 90 days of receiving it, failed to either remove the work or pay for its removal. An owner is presumed to have made a diligent, good-faith attempt if they sent the notice by registered mail to the artist's most recent address on file with the Register of Copyrights. If the work is removed at the artist's expense, that copy of the work belongs to the artist. (3) The Register of Copyrights must set up a system letting an artist whose visual-art work has become part of a building record their identity and address with the Copyright Office, and must set up procedures for artists to update that information and for building owners to record evidence of their efforts to comply with this subsection.