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Copyright Row Over Copenhagen's Little Mermaid Sculpture

Maybe that's just what a mermaid looks like...

Copyright Row Over Copenhagen's Little Mermaid Sculpture
Carl Karlsson

Since its unveiling in 1913, the Little Mermaid sculpture has become one of Copenhagen's main tourist attractions. But Edvard Eriksen's five-foot unassumingly perched homage to Christian Andersen's fairy tale has also had its fair share of drama.

The first came in 1964, when the bronze sculpture became the victim of an abandoned lover's rage and was beheaded with a hacksaw. Then, in 1998, it happened again; this time by an extremist feminist group. The list of survival events also includes a severed and stolen (but then returned) arm, being launched off her rock and into the water (explosives), stabbed in the neck and in 2015 — perhaps most brutal of all — getting banned from Facebook for breaching nudity guidelines.

Now, according to the Eriksen hiers, Den Lille Havfrue is now under fresh attack. In a letter to Mikael Klitgaard, mayor of the northern municipality of Brønderslev, the heirs claim that a more recent sculpture, put in place four years ago in Asaa Havn, bears too much resemblance to the original, and demanded that the copy be demolished.

It's not the first time the heirs have taken legal action to protect their ancestors' heritage. Several publications have been charged with copyright infringement after publishing pictures of the mermaid, there among daily Berlingske Tidende that was fined 285.000 Danish kroner ($45,000) last year for a caricature depiction of the Eriksen work.

While Brønderslev Mayor Mikael Klitgaard questions the heirs' motives in claiming patent right "for a whole animal species," the Little Mermaid's century-long fight for survival has no doubt earned her a special place in Danish society. Many of the less violent attacks seem to be an outlet for locals' expression, including spray paint and political messaging: For a while she wore a burqa — apparently a protest against Turkey joining the EU — and last year she had both "Free Hong Kong" and "Racist Fish" scrawled across her base.

Meanwhile, the defendant in the plagiarism case, Palle Mørk, dismisses the claim that his work isn't original. Responding to the charge that his creation is perched in the same position, Mørk said to Danish

TV2: "Well, how the hell else should a mermaid sit on a rock? She doesn't have legs."

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War

BDS And Us: Gaza's Toll Multiplies Boycotts Of Israel And Its Allies — Seinfeld Included

In Egypt and elsewhere in the region and the world, families and movements are mobilizing against companies that support Israel's war on Gaza. The power of the people lies in their control as consumers — and the list of companies and brands to boycott grows longer.

A campaign poster with the photo of a burger with blood coming out of it with text reading "You Kill" and the Burger King logo

A campaign poster to boycott Burger King in Bangkok, Malü

Matt Hunt/ZUMA
Mohammed Hamama

CAIRO — Ali Al-Din’s logic is simple and straightforward: “If you buy a can (of soda), you'll get the bullet too...”

Those bullets are the ones killing the children of Gaza every day, and the can he refuses to buy is “kanzaya” – the popular Egyptian soft drink. It is just one of a long list of products he had the habit of consuming. Ali is nine years old.

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The clarity and simplicity of this logic has pushed Ali Al-Din to boycott all the products on the lists people are circulating of companies that have supported Israel since the attacks on Gaza began in October. His mother, Heba, points out that her son took responsibility for overseeing the boycott in their home.

A few days ago, he saw a can of “Pyrosol” insecticide, but he thought it was one of the products of the “Raid” company that was on the boycott’s lists. He warned his mother that this product was on the boycott list, but she explained that the two products were different. Ali al-Din and his younger brother also abstained from eating any food from McDonald's. “They love McDonald’s very much,” his mother says. “But they refuse.”

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