Similar, but not copied, image found to breach copyright: Digital Photography Review
I don't know about anyone else but it strikes me that this says more about the knowledge of those who judged this case than anything else. The use of colour in B&W images is hardly new, can be seen in many other types of images and for a tourist this might be a typical picture taken of a London bus. Where is this judgement likely to lead us?
I think the problem here is that in both cases the only coloured object in an otherwise B&W picture happens to be a red London bus. That plus the fact that both pictures have the same background (Palace of Westminster or Houses of Parliament), even though they were shot at different angles and one shows the Thames whereas the other doesn't.
It really is a grey area, but I would have thought that popular locations as this one would make copyright infringements difficult to prove.
Interesting article here: Using Images - What you need to know
Exactly how 'iconic' is this image from Temple Island supposed to be?
It's obvious the tea label was 'inspired' by the 'original', but how much revenue could this Temple Island (who don't sell tea) be losing?Team Island Merchandising tat site said:
Pretty petty lawsuit really.
It does seem a bit petty to me too - just how much research is one expected to do these days when photography is so abundant and the likelihood of many people having the same idea is going to be frequent.
to be honest, Unless the guy who took the photograph is making money off the photograph, why are they taking him to court? would you see metallica taking a school band to court because of their recreation of enter sandman? no, but if they were at a concert then yes, the band have every right to take them to court, same goes here really, but even though different cameras were used, different angles were used, i see some similarities but at the end of the day, it's a photograph, anyone could take the same picture, but only the person who turns up at the patent office gets the rights to make money off it.
It makes me wonder how we are sliding into the future since this particular case seems to entail very little skill with image manipulation software to produce and is a rather mundane picture anyway - doesn't exactly excite me at least.
Quote