shipping companies that judge art

[cos]

DHL tried to destroy the paintings by top Japanese artist Nobuyoshi Araki which were en route to the MEO gallery in Budapest. The gallery only found out the paintings had been scheduled for destruction after it contacted DHL to find out why the pictures had not arrived for the start of last month's exhibition.

Read the whole story: Courier nearly destroyed 'porn' artworks

Apparently, DHL has a history of doing this, and UPS has a similar policy. This article in Salon includes another DHL "porn" story, and an attempt to interview representatives from DHL, UPS, and FedEx: the shipping nudes

The last paragraph is my favorite:
Federal Express could make hay off being a Botticelli-friendly carrier. It would be a great TV commercial. The opening shot features a nice middle-aged woman looking appreciatively at a life-size reproduction of Michaelangelo's "David." She turns and faces the camera. "I tried to send this poster home from Europe to my son who's studying Renaissance art, but DHL and UPS ripped open my parcel and said it was pornographic. If it weren't for Federal Express, I would have missed his birthday entirely!" Cut to a shot of a Federal Express plane flying into the sunset, then her son unrolling the poster and beaming appreciatively, while a voice-over announces, "Federal Express: We take care of the shipping and leave questions of taste up to you."

This all reminds me of the recent controversy surrounding a certain painting at Vassar College, as told in the artist's blog here and here. nebel, who works next to the painting in question, ranted about it in this post

[Edited for people at work: The photos are behind a cut tag now. I'll un-cut in a week or two]

Comments

[cutieperson]

would you mind putting the pics behind an lj cut tag for those of us at work? i don't think my boss would be interested in discussing whether or not nudity was pornographic :)

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

Y'ever hear about a country called Canada?

Never mind...

[cos]

Okay, temporarily lj-cut. I'll remove the cut in a while, after it's no longer going to show up by surprise on someone's friends page.

[greyhame.livejournal.com]

Hm.
While I agree that it's absurd that the shipping company would try to destroy them (what were they even doing looking inside the package?), I'm not sure this is as clear-cut as the Vassar painting situation. Would DHL be in a position to be held legally responsible if they delivered paintings like these to a country where they'd be illegal? If so, while I still wouldn't agree with their policy, it seems to me it'd be in line with policies like, say, checking packages for drugs and explosives. Destroying the artwork is still an unacceptable response--in a case like that they should just return it to the shipper. Destroying it without notifying anyone seems like something they ought be sued over.

[geminigirl]

Oh yeah. Cause I'm wondering why the brochure I sent a friend (about HIV prevention for women who have sex with women-I don't even think there were any pictures) hasn't gotten to her yet.

[reasdream.livejournal.com]

Ick. Stupidity rules the world...

and from now on - fedex only

[cos]

Did you read the Salon article?

I think if DHL were to be held legally liable for shipping "porn", it would be because they inspect packages for it, which could be held by a court to mean that they exercise editorial control over what they ship and should be responsible for it. But as far as foreign customs go, no, obviously not - any country that tried to sue shipping companies for not inspecting for porn would just be asking to be cut off from international shipping. See FedEx's response in the Salon article.

[greyhame.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't read the article, because my point wasn't that I thought that was the case: my point was that I could more easily conceive of a scenario in which a check-to-see-if-it's-porn policy wasn't totally unreasonable, than I could one in which the Vassar situation wasn't.

[rekling.livejournal.com]

as one who sends out literally a dozen packages of pornography a week, that has been completely the opposite of my UPS experience. and let me tell you, our UPS guys know exactly what kind of business we are. and in the recent case that a package was damaged during shipment (a package which happened to contain a somewhat pornographic VHS tape) they seemed to have no trouble with covering the cost to replace the item. granted, i haven't used them for overseas stuff. but the USPS has been just fine and dandy for that, and i've not heard of anything being seized in a long time (::knockonwood:: that's a headache i just don't need).

-rek

[sauergeek.livejournal.com]

DHL almost certainly qualifies as a common carrier. This means that ideally they have no business going out of their way to find out what they're carrying. (If they happen across something that tells them they're carrying something illegal, they're obligated to act -- but a common carrier, as far as I know, has no obligation to investigate without such evidence.)

I can see an interesting test case come out of this: $PORNOGRAPHER sends something via DHL that is obscene in the destination country. DHL fails to catch it, and delivers it. $PORNOGRAPHER is now up for obscenity charges. Is DHL, with its history of attempting to control obscenity in what it ships, also liable for the obscenity charges? My initial guess is yes: they're exercising editorial control. (For an analogous case, see Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy (and contrast Cubby v. Compuserve). The only problem with generating a test case like this is that $PORNOGRAPHER would remain liable for obscenity regardless of how DHL ended up.

[bi-lingworm.livejournal.com]

I don't care enough about this to read articles, but it does seem strange that they would see what they were doing as anything but outright censorship. If it were illegal (and I assure you, it's not in Hungary - the state modern gallery had a lovely roomful of penis photographs one day - go Bp. art scene! very creative, kid.), it would still be up to customs to crack down at the port. I mean, they can TELL customs what they're bringing in and raise any "concerns", but I can't imagine it would be up to DHL to do any policing. Anyhow, I guess this is part of Bush's [Christian Right]Americanization of the world, eh?

[darklady-produc.livejournal.com]

Alas, Canada has its own weird ideas about what's permissable, thanks to Andrea Dworkin, so it's not heaven on earth, either.