[interested_observer]

A UK legal ruling on two similar photographs...

• Photographers face copyright threat after shock ruling (update3) news - Amateur Photographer - news, camera reviews, lens reviews, camera equipment guides, photography courses, competitions, photography forums

[hcarvalhoalves]

A new level of copyright bulls*** has been achieved.

Lawyers are loving this, of course. They are the only ones making money, after all.

[RioRico]

Fock, we're doomed.

Imagine this. You're in focking London Town innocently taking a turista snap of some focking royal palace. But some commercial togger was there 55 years ago and snapped a shot from the same focking place and copyrighted it and his descendants' solicitors have kept the copyright active. So anyone shooting from the same place is guilty of copyright infringement and must pay big to the focking solicitors et cetera.

That's it. If anything you shoot looks anything like anything somebody else has ever shot, you're focked. It's the look-and-feel doctrine. No impersonations. No inspirations. No adulations. No building on prior art. Say, shouldn't some solicitors be put to the torch?

[Wheatfield]

To be fair, this was one company suing another for infringement over their logo. Taken in that context, the judgement is reasonable. About the only thing the photographer did in the photo that was deemed to infringe was to change his camera position slightly. Everything else is copied. When it comes to trademarked images, it is prudent to do things that are original. Stealing concepts on a wholesale basis will generally run a person into hot water.
Imagine for a moment how long a camera store in Santa Fe, New Mexico would stay open if the owner built a mud daubed looking building and called his business "The Adobe Photoshop".

[RioRico]

To be fair, this was one company suing another for infringement over their logo. Taken in that context, the judgement is reasonable.

I'm reminded of a case involving winemakers. The black-sheep scion of a vinery family (Taylor, in upstate New York) wanted to produce an organic wine labeled with his last name. IIRC he called it Grandfather Taylor's. The corp that had bought the Taylor operation sued the kid, and won -- you can't call a wine Taylor even if that's your born name. Infringement is tricky.

About the only thing the photographer did in the photo that was deemed to infringe was to change his camera position slightly. Everything else is copied.

Still, the ruling seems to imply that the first (commercial?) photo taken at a specific location has primacy, and all subsequent shots at that same location are infringing.

I could raise the parallel of traditional art training. Students go to galleries and copy pictures. By hand, yes, but they're yet copies. And good copies might be sold. And not just students; big-name artists have produced works "after" whomever. That's how artists develop, by emulating and homaging and surpassing their predecessors. Strict IP poisons innovation. I might draw brilliant innovative day-glo renditions of the Mona Lisa and of a Warhol Marilyn. If I tried selling the latter, the Warhol Foundation would be all over my moldy butt. Of course Warhol copied that Marilyn pic himself, but the IP regime was different then.

Imagine for a moment how long a camera store in Santa Fe, New Mexico would stay open if the owner built a mud daubed looking building and called his business "The Adobe Photoshop".

I thought I saw that store, between the Plaza and the Alameda. No Pentax stuff, alas.

[Brangdon]

About the only thing the photographer did in the photo that was deemed to infringe was to change his camera position slightly. Everything else is copied. When it comes to trademarked images, it is prudent to do things that are original.

I'm not yet convinced. This isn't about "passing off", or trademarks. The difference in camera angle is not slight; indeed, I think the original is a vastly better photo.

From the judgement:

Conversely the claimant says: The defendants are free if they wish to create a red on grey London icon image. They can even have a Routemaster before the Houses of Parliament. As their own evidence shows, these can be depicted in all sorts of different ways. But what they cannot have is a southbound Routemaster on Westminster Bridge before the Houses of Parliament at the same angle as the claimant's work on a greyscale background and a white sky, in circumstances where they have admitted seeing the claimant's work.

It seems to me that what they seek to protect is a list of ideas, and not very special ideas. That the bus is heading south bound at a particular angle is due to the river being south of the building, and the bridge crossing the river, and the bus being on the road on the bridge. The red on monochrome is just an idea. Ideas are not protected by copyright.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was over-turned on appeal.

[boriscleto]

I'm reminded of a case involving winemakers. The black-sheep scion of a vinery family (Taylor, in upstate New York) wanted to produce an organic wine labeled with his last name. IIRC he called it Grandfather Taylor's. The corp that had bought the Taylor operation sued the kid, and won -- you can't call a wine Taylor even if that's your born name. Infringement is tricky.

Actually, Bully Hill. (Though he may have had a wine called Grandfather Taylor's. Bully Hill trademarked a wine called Space Shuttle Rose that NASA tried to block.)

Bully Hill Vineyards - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The corp that sued was Coca-Cola. A small estate winery in Upstate NY isn't going to beat Coca-Cola.

In July 1977, after a merger with Coca-Cola Co., the Taylor Wine Co. sued Walter Taylor to stop him from using his last name. U.S. District Court Judge Harold P. Burke agreed with the complaint. His instructions were that Bully Hill was enjoined from "using the word Taylor or any colorable imitation thereof in connection with any labeling, packaging materials, advertising, or promotional material for any of defendant's products." The Taylor name was then blotted out wherever it appeared on Bully Hill products.[4]

Until his death Walter Taylor would often say things like, "Just call me Walter S. Blank," or "Yes, I'm the owner of Bully Hill, but I can't tell you where I came from."

---

Last edited by boriscleto; 01-26-2012 at 03:25 PM.

[jimH]

Fock, we're doomed.

Imagine this. You're in focking London Town innocently taking a turistasnap of some focking royal palace. But some commercial togger was there 55 years ago and snapped a shot from the same focking place and copyrighted it and his descendants' solicitors have kept the copyright active. So anyone shooting from the same place is guilty of copyright infringement and must pay big to the focking solicitors et cetera.

That's it. If anything you shoot looks anything like anything somebody else has ever shot, you're focked. It's the look-and-feel doctrine. No impersonations. No inspirations. No adulations. No building on prior art. Say, shouldn't some solicitors be put to the torch?

I'm guessing that if you are a typical tourist and shooting a photo for yourself you have nothing to worry about from a copyright standpoint. It's only if you have the notion of selling the photo for money, do you excite the juices of a solicitor or attorney with eyes on making a fortune. It's money that makes the juices of the avaricious flow like water. So if you take a photo of a famous place, be sure that you standing in a place, and looking at it in a purely unique way, if you want to sell it to someone who makes a difference.

[RioRico]

I'm guessing that if you are a typical tourist and shooting a photo for yourself you have nothing to worry about from a copyright standpoint.

Tell that to kids at birthday parties who want to sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY but find that it's copyrighted and the owners want payment for every 'performance'. I kid thee not.

[boriscleto]

Tell that to kids at birthday parties who want to sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY but find that it's copyrighted and the owners want payment for every 'performance'. I kid thee not.

Only a problem if you put it on YouTube.

[Colbyt]

Adding one more negative comment to this thread, I am fairly sure that every damn thing in the world has been photographed by someone at some point in time. If this asinine ruling is allowed to stand we all might as well chuck our cameras in the pond.

[RioRico]

Adding one more negative comment to this thread, I am fairly sure that every damn thing in the world has been photographed by someone at some point in time. If this asinine ruling is allowed to stand we all might as well chuck our cameras in the pond.

Or: Go beyond the ordinary. Shoot ultra-panos, or HDRs, or IR or UV or other specturm-slicing, or 3D-holo, or Lensbaby, or apply PP up the yazoo. Do some creative shooping: throw in troops or dinosaurs or naked people or robots or big crawling eyes or whatever. Just don't look like a postcard or calendar.

I've been writing (intermittently) for some years that standard photography is DEAD, kaput, finished, muerto, sayonara. Nature photography? It's been DONE already, every last bug and lion and flower. 'Scapes? I've seen'em ALL a zillion times. All that's left are 1) shooting people, as long as they aren't posed stereotypically, and 2) different technologies. Too much else is just tedious. What, another cat portrait?

[bobmaxja]

The mention here the main reason is that the Photo was Photoshop. It.s not the photo who is in question but in modifying a photo to get a message . I understand the point and be sure very few case will happen in the general public

[interested_observer]

Tell that to kids at birthday parties who want to sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY but find that it's copyrighted and the owners want payment for every 'performance'. I kid thee not.

I read somewhere where elementary schools are prohibiting the singing of Happy Birthday - just for that very reason....

[hcarvalhoalves]

If I want to take another damn photo of a bus on London, with color extraction, from the same angle... heck, I should be able to do so.

What happens is that you have to be reasonable. For instance, if the other company used a similar photo, incurring the risk that a customer might get confused and think his brand is another brand, that's one thing, and it's bad.

But if they make tea and put a London bus on their package, I make umbrelas and also put a London bus on my package, it doesn't matter if my photo is any similar or not. It doesn't even make sense to have a judge ponder if the photo is similar enough or not, since this is completely subjective, and in this case, has no practical implications with branding or anything.

It's just like trademark. You can't release a wine labeled "Johnnie Walker", since you will be inducing customers to error. But if you want to release a wine called "Jack Runner", or a toy called "Johnnie Walker", you should be able to.

Now, the real WTF in this history, though, is that it's not the company using someone else's image being sued, but the photographer. What the hell?!