[Steve Smith]

If the neighbouring country is France and the world-known building is the Eiffel tower, as far as I know the "copyright on nocturne pictures" it's just a delusional and possibly less-than-honest pretension by the entity managing the building.

In their web site they say that they own rights to the publishing of the building at night, because they hold the copyright of the lighting scheme. IIRC they don't even mention commercial use, they just claim money for any kind of publication.

I agree. If they didn't want people to see or photograph it at night, they shouldn't have illuminated it!

You can only infringe the copyright of a lighting scheme (if it exists) with a very similar lighting scheme, not a photograph. I would consider the lighting to be part of the building and the Berne convention is very clear in that it does not consider a photograph to be an infringement of a building's copyright.


Steve.