It is theft in my eyes because an opportunity has been stolen. This is going to move into the realm of victim-less crime. While an individual may not be able to personally quantify any sort of loss, there is certainly a loss to the community.

Now, I'm going to confess an unscrupulous act that I committed years ago. I was trying to sell a car by posting on a free public site, I think it was craigslist...anyway, I found a photo of the same car as mine on one of those photo hosting sites, like photo bucket, and I copied the image URL and used it in my ad. Being it was a rare car and that the owner of the picture was an interested party in that particular model, he actually found my ad and contacted me claiming a copyright violation. My perception was quite different as I said that I had not copied his photo at all, I was just using a "pointer" to his image, and the image was being served to consumers from "his" photo bucket site. I offered that if he did not like me using the image, he could just change it's URL. That was not likely something that he wanted to do. He threatened to sue and that was about the end of it. I never ended up selling the car and he just went away.

I'm not sure how different I feel about that situation today, but I most likely would not do that again.

That is a pretty cool story, Shockee.

Is that video still around? I would like to see it if it is.

Well you put some money on your training to be at least a good photographer. There must be something that you want in return in what you do.. Just send them a letter but I think that their Lawyer already know how to patch things up here. Kinda hard to declare a war if the company that knows what they are up against.... Just an opinion.. TRY... If they reacted POSITIVELY.... Cheers!!!!!! But if NEGATIVE feedback.... Ouch!!!!! Bragging Rights for having your picture on the front page? Lols

That is a very interesting ruling.

It makes me wonder though, they keep on suggesting photoshop manipulation that made the original something special. Is it that the red bus does not drive down that street or what? What I mean is for that ruling to have happened I think that there has to be something about that shot that does not happen in a public spot normally.

If that is the case then I do think that I am on board with the ruling. However, if that bus runs down that street every twenty minutes then I don't get it.

... they keep on suggesting photoshop manipulation that made the original something special...

To answer your question, multiple buses will go down that, and every other main street in London, all the time.

I'm sure the moral problem with this issue is that the owner of the original photo had an inflated view of the worth of his 'concept'. (We have to separate here, the IP in the idea, and the IP in the manifestation.)

What bugs me is that there are Canon cameras that have this artistic concept 'built in' as a picture style. This person didn't invent it, he just pointed the concept at a London Bus. It's an obvious source of colour, how creative is that, actually?

They didn't need a hi res picture for their product. I wonder: if they'd chosen a different location (copying the location is definitely cheeky) and used a camera that produces that effect automatically without Photoshop manipulation, would the outcome have been the same?

This is a very deep question that manifests at many levels. Are we to say that any photo that imitates the concept of the Christine Keeler portrait is copyright infringement of Lewis Morley's work?



And contained within the wikipedia article, a fascinating manifestation of the same thing at the next level: the photographer made a chair similar to a copyrighted design, but altered it enough to evade accusations of infringment!

It seems that people are very protective of their own copyright, but are happy to build on other people's creativity with abandon.

I think the ruling came down because of the "creative idea" for the image, which makes it more than a photograph. I think if it was just a picture of something, there would be no question.

Suppose you submitted a photo for the POTM competition, and I copied your idea and submitted the same thing (but my own photo) - do you think there would be outrage on the forum? Maybe I should try it, and see what happens, it would be an interesting experiment.

My point is, that given that it is the creative idea which makes it belong to the originator is not in any way unique; there's a similar concept in my local IKEA.

And the fact that Canon cameras do this automatically means that this copyright holder can't claim that it's his idea.

Oh, don't get me started on patents! There are parallels for sure, since the mechanism is there to encourage creativity by allowing the creator to profit from it.

When I was young, an electronics trade magazine published a series of articles about various circuit configurations and how they could be used. One month, they published a letter from a guy who explained that last month's configuration was covered by a patent that he owned, and that anyone using it had to license it from him. This set me thinking.

Some inventions are patented even when they're really quite obvious. As a thought experiment, suppose you made a device which, instead of having a method pre-programmed, it considered on boot-up all the possibilities, and calculated which one was the most effective, and then went on to use it for the duration of the power-on. All devices were to be sold powered off as a condition. In this case, if the patent holder tried to bring an action, they would be forced to admit that the device as sold did not contain the patent, and that because the device chose to use the patented method by itself, it could not be considered creative. (I'm assuming that the concepts of creative and automatic are complementary here.)

Would the patent holder be cheeky enough to require that the 'best method determining program' specifically exclude his method from the range of options? That would be quite a damning admission, and should draw attention to the injustice.

The parallel with this thread is here: suppose New English Teas goes ahead and uses one of those Canon cameras that does the effect automatically, and points it at a London Bus. They don't photoshop it at all, but use it as it comes out of the camera. Temple Island Collection did not create the scene, so New English Teas are not copying something that belongs to Temple Island Collection. All the creativity [sic] was performed automatically by the camera, so by the automatic/creative principle, it cannot be considered creative. All that is left is the idea of that kind of image, which would have to be more of a trademark dispute rather than anything else (e.g. if other tea companies tried to make their product look like New English Teas'). Doesn't this prove that the case went the wrong way?

And to further the patent parallel; are we to have a special image recognition software in the Canon cameras, like some image software refuses to print banknotes, that pops up a warning if it detects an object that looks like a London bus, asking the user if they wish to continue to purchase rights to that from Temple Island Collection, or abort?

Temple Island Collection did not create the scene, so New English Teas are not copying something that belongs to Temple Island Collection.

I guess to some extent they did create the image of the scene. I'm wondering how the judge would have ruled if the photos were just plain, full color images.

The case, heard at the Patents County Court in London on 12 January, could have serious implications for photographers, according to photographic copyright expert Charles Swan, a lawyer at Swan Turton, who said: 'His honour Judge Birss QC decided that a photograph of a red London bus against a black and white background of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, with a blank sky, was similar enough to another photograph of the same subject matter to infringe copyright.'

Now, if the photo was not simply B/W and the the sky was full blue and clear, then how could judge not arrive at the same conclusion - even more so because all the colors would match!

It implies that I cannot take a photo of something like the Golden Gate Bridge or other popular landmarks and use them commercially, because I'm sure every photo of those things have already been copyrighted...