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Author Topic: Petronas Twin Towers  (Read 34088 times)

bdkphoto

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Petronas Twin Towers
« Reply #60 on: May 23, 2007, 07:40:33 pm »

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Okay! Now we're getting somewhere. Regarding Couleur's situation, a professional photographer with business interests to protect might already have registered a copyright on a very similar image of the Petronus Twin Towers.

If Couleur were to also try to register his copyright, the copyright might not be accepted because it is too similar to one already copyrighted. Presumably there are employees in the copyright office who are making some sort of artistic judgement on such issues. Didn't know this sort of thing happened. Seems a very expensive process to me.

I take it that Howard is not saying that anyone who takes a photo and tries to profit from it is putting himself/herself at risk of being sued because it is coincidentally very similar to one which has been registered in the copyrights office.

Are there any precedents for such a situation where a photographer has innocently taken a shot of a well known public attraction, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, the Eiffel Tower etc, and subsequently been taken to court by another photographer on the grounds that the other photographer took a very similar, almost identical shot from the same position and angle first?

Seems a bit farcical to me.
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AFAIK the LOC does not check images against one another.  Visit the links and read. There are a lot of interesting cases of infringment, and rather than making up all these hypotheticals, read about some of the real cases and how and why they were resolved. There have been many cases where similar images have been litigated. Here's a recent story.  [a href=\"http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003581213]http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/arti...t_id=1003581213[/url] If this ad was created in the US there would be a compelling case for infringment.

James Godman

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Petronas Twin Towers
« Reply #61 on: May 23, 2007, 08:04:39 pm »

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Presumably there are employees in the copyright office who are making some sort of artistic judgement on such issues. Didn't know this sort of thing happened. Seems a very expensive process to me.
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I'm fairly sure nobody is making aesthetic judgements at the copyright office.  This judgement would  be determined by a judge, armed with the registration information like date etc., in case of a conflict.
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James Godman
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howiesmith

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Petronas Twin Towers
« Reply #62 on: May 23, 2007, 09:19:32 pm »

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I take it that Howard is not saying that anyone who takes a photo and tries to profit from it is putting himself/herself at risk of being sued because it is coincidentally very similar to one which has been registered in the copyrights office.

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You need to verify this for yourself.
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Ray

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Petronas Twin Towers
« Reply #63 on: May 23, 2007, 10:20:35 pm »

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There have been many cases where similar images have been litigated. Here's a recent story.  http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/arti...t_id=1003581213 If this ad was created in the US there would be a compelling case for infringment.
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I'm not sure there would be. The article makes the point that crying children and photographic styles are not a matter of copyright in the US.

However, in studio situations where various creative props and backgrounds are deliberately created for a particular effect, including say a particular hat and dress and color scheme so it becomes obvious that one photo is a deliberate copy of another, I can appreciate that there could be a case for infringement of copyright.

That is not the same situation with shots of public places which are as they are. I find it absurd that anyone could have a copyright on a particular perspective of the Twin Towers, or a perspective plus a time of day.
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Ray

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Petronas Twin Towers
« Reply #64 on: May 23, 2007, 10:24:25 pm »

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You need to verify this for yourself.
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I have no such need Howard since I'm not in the business of trying to make exact copies of other artists' work, but I am nevertheless influenced by all sorts of styles.
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