Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: nicholask on November 22, 2008, 09:05:05 pm
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I am always disappointed and sickened when I see the wholesale theft of photographers' work by other so-called photographers, who blatantly steal and copy work.
I have a couple of recent examples here:
Firstly, a shot by Montalbetti and Campbell (client Tim Tams), which has been ripped off by Sullivan and Lane for Pepsi Cola. Sullivan and Lane, I nominate you for the Shame Files.
Secondly, a shot of Michael Phelps, which has been ripped off for an image of Australian swim star Stephanie Rice: Shame File No 2!
Maybe we need a website/hall of shame dedicated to exposing further such examples of creative theft.
Nick
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You are actually naive enough to think those are original shots in the first place?
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So you don't believe in originality? Youy are very cynical.
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Of course I do, but that has nothing to do with my question.
The point is those are all shots that have been seen and done countless times, and will be done again. Calling it plagiarism is ridiculous to say the least. That like saying a Lexus is a copy of a Kia because they both have 4 tires.
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You are actually naive enough to think those are original shots in the first place?
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Is there a moderator in the house? This is not good forum-decorum...
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Try about 3 or 4 different images of Marilyn Monroe and Madonna to start with.
And, as for the sports one...that was originally a 1972 image of Mark Spitz to begin with.
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http...l%3Den%26sa%3DX (http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/34846/thumbs/s-SPITZ-PHELPS-large.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/19/michael-phelps-spitz-take_n_119764.html%3Fshow_comment_id%3D14794741&usg=__w1fWLDTC_uraMK9kOEoZNiyMyV8=&h=190&w=260&sz=16&hl=en&start=7&um=1&tbnid=BtM65_DEgYZMdM:&tbnh=82&tbnw=112&prev=/images%3Fq%3DSports%2Billustrated%2Bgold%2Bmedal%2Bphoto%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX)
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I find the pose in the first pair to be a common one, but there is no denying that the spiral wrap from one appears to have influenced the other. I think the second pair is in too heavily traveled ground to cry plagiarism, as both are utilitarian poses on red backgrounds.
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The first two are pretty much identical. But I can't see any issue with the second pair: swimmers with their hands on their hips (in different orientations), wearing medals? I'd bet pretty much every head-on pose has already been done, so where do you go from there?
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The first two are pretty much identical. But I can't see any issue with the second pair: swimmers with their hands on their hips (in different orientations), wearing medals? I'd bet pretty much every head-on pose has already been done, so where do you go from there?
If nobody sues, then nobody cares. Which says it all.
Rob C
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The girl shots both derive from the infamous Marilyn Monroe on red velvet shots from the 50's. Which in turn owes something to a William Mortensen shot, IIRC.
Personally I feel it's OK to build on an existing idea, as long as you add something interesting. But no more Antelope Canyon shots, please.
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I also don't see "theft" of intellectual property in these shots.
The Phelps shot contrasts the Spits shot nicely. I don't know (or care about) my Olympic history, but it seems like Spits was a very accomplished athlete, but Phelps outdid him. Therefore putting him in the same shot, same pose, but with more medals is very appropriate - although a bit obvious.
The Pepsi shot is an obvious (to me) homage to the Marilyn shot. I'm sure the association was intentional - it is marketing, after all. If you pay attention to marketing photography in general you'll see so many connections, associations and homages that you're bound to find something resembling "theft" or plagiarism sooner or later. It's not supposed to be art, but to sell a product. Marketing 101.
Finally, just like in story-telling (Hollywood, TV, books), every shot has been taken a million times already. Looking hard enough you will find almost every shot done by someone else before. Well, perhaps not every one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Marble).
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In people photography, in particular photography showing a single person, EVERY pose has been done already ... so whatever images are taken nowadays, they should not be used ...
No I do not see plagiarism in the shots shown here. As mentioned, the first two could be seen as an hommage to altogether earlier work, the second pair just shows a very simple pose and composition (and if you look where their hands are, they are even substantially different). Just tell someone to be proud and bold and look into the camera, that is what the resulting image looks like. There are even such images showing myself :-P
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Try having someone blatantly steal one of your images and pass it off as their own. It made me almost physically sick. Didn't even try to crop the image to change the appearance. Now THAT is theft of intellectual property. Fortunately in my case, the sponsoring website realized the theft when I pointed it out to them, and they took action immediately to correct it. Seems like the one thing corporations fear more than the government is the possibility of a lawsuit...
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the first shot (Montalbetti and Campbell) is a direct rip-off, the second one is hard to call plagiarism, because the pose that the model is striking is hardly new, and I am sure that phelps wasn't the first to be photographed in that pose.
for the first one, I also wouldn't blame the photographer, who probably just supplied the image of the woman. the rest of the story lays with the campain art/creative director and the client. I worked in advertising, and I have seen my fare share of "oh, that looks cool, why don't you do exactly something like that" scenarios. and i think that this is one of those cases.
don't blame the photographer... blame the agency.
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I think as far as people photography goes pretty much everything has been copied either from other photographers or from painters. Call it plagerism or homage or unconscious replication, someone has probably done it before.
What would be interesting to see is something original. Or what you perceive to be original and then others can chime in and show you that it too has been done before. Maybe there is still someway to photograph a person in a unique or different way, but I very much doubt it.
There are a lot of great artists and photographer that preceeded us and I'm not seeing anything today that is truly original unless it's a surreal type composite of images.
Michael
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I've done things I've never seen anyone else do, yet I bet someone somewhere else has done something like it before. HDR, Draganism and another whose name escapes me are similar in look to some things I did a while ago and before these techniques became known or were even invented. My shots are done in a different way, one was even done using film. But it will always be assumed I'm copying others. I get asked about my HDR images, yet I've never done HDR.
I've got notebooks of ideas and sketches for things to do, some I've then seen in the Tate Modern and done 50 years ago. It's impossible to see all art/photography, so it's impossible to know if you are being genuinely creative or ploughing a furrow that others have been down before. Now with the web, it's even worse as you could be innovative and creative in your own country, now you have to be innovative and creative in the entire world. And as soon as you done something new and interesting, everyone is asking about which filter or plugin do I need to copy this 'unique' style.
Not to say that people don't or shouldn't use other work as a starting point. There is a tongue in cheek phrase relating to such things. Good photographers/writers/designers borrow, Grreat photographers/writers/designers steal.
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Good photographers/writers/designers borrow, Grreat photographers/writers/designers steal.
Well which does Jeff Koons fall into?
r
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How about this, then?
http://www.samhaskinsblog.com (http://www.samhaskinsblog.com)
Sleep well, if innocent!
Rob C
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Well which does Jeff Koons fall into?
r
Rich artists!
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How about this, then?
http://www.samhaskinsblog.com (http://www.samhaskinsblog.com)
Sleep well, if innocent!
Not commenting on the rest, but the bottom two photographs in his article are a joke. He thinks the Madonna one is a direct rip-off of his own? There are more differences than similarities.