# Insane court judgement insists that similar photos could breach copyright



## editor (Jan 25, 2012)

This is mad. It's a different photo taken from a different angle using a very common photographic effect - yet the image was found to breach copyright.





> Despite significant differences between the two images (there was no implication that the second image was a duplicate of the first), the court found that the second image copied substantially from the 'intellectual creation' of the first (that is the elements that can be protected by copyright in the original image, including a consideration of the composition, lighting and processing of the image).



More: http://www.amateurphotographer.co.u...t_threat_after_shock_ruling__news_311191.html


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## Greebo (Jan 25, 2012)

WTF?


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## story (Jan 25, 2012)

Well obviously.

I mean, it's a very distinct and unique location. Hardly anyone ever goes there, so the second photographer is clearly copying the ideas of the first.


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## Athos (Jan 25, 2012)

Clearly the idea of a red bus in London is something the first guy came up with.


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## kained&able (Jan 25, 2012)

I was having a conversation with someone the other day about how comes some hollywood studio hasn't claimed copyright on all action films or how comes id software haven't claimed copyright on every first person shooter there has ever been.

I think it is getting closer.

dave


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## Me76 (Jan 25, 2012)

So once someone has taken a picture of anything, any otehr picture taken of the same thing would breach copyright?


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## kained&able (Jan 25, 2012)

Someone who took an earlier photo like the first one and did the same back/white + 1 colour things needs to sue the first photographer really.

dave


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 25, 2012)

kained&able said:


> I was having a conversation with someone the other day about how comes some hollywood studio hasn't claimed copyright on all action films or how comes id software haven't claimed copyright on every first person shooter there has ever been.
> 
> I think it is getting closer.
> 
> dave


Technically copyrights should not cover ideas, just specific expressions of those ideas (apparently this is called the idea-expression divide). Patents can cover ideas.


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## ViolentPanda (Jan 25, 2012)

This should get appealed up the food-chain.


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## maldwyn (Jan 25, 2012)

Had photographer two previously seen photograph one before taking/editing their picture?


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## Ranbay (Jan 25, 2012)

Photo 2 is shiter


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## kained&able (Jan 25, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Technically copyrights should not cover ideas, just specific expressions of those ideas (apparently this is called the idea-expression divide). Patents can cover ideas.



fine id software should patent FPS' games then.


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## sim667 (Jan 25, 2012)

B0B2oo9 said:


> Photo 2 is shiter



They're both shit tbh.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 25, 2012)

kained&able said:


> fine id software should patent FPS' games then.


The thing with games is that companies with the money and inclination to patent aspects of them don't usually come up with any new ideas anyway.


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## rover07 (Jan 25, 2012)

I can see their point. Its not about one photo. The Red Bus image is a brand for their souvenir range.







If someone else is using similar branding for their tea products then that's infringement.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 25, 2012)

rover07 said:


> I can see their point. Its not about one photo. The Red Bus image is a brand for their souvenir range.
> 
> If someone else is using similar branding for their tea products then that's infringement.


It might be a trademark issue, but it's not a _copyright_ one. (Well, I don't think it is, anyway, and nor apparently do a lot of people.)


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## editor (Jan 25, 2012)

rover07 said:


> I can see their point. Its not about one photo. The Red Bus image is a brand for their souvenir range.


Do they own the image rights to red buses then?


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## editor (Jan 25, 2012)

rover07 said:


> If someone else is using similar branding for their tea products then that's infringement.


They don't sell tea.


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## killer b (Jan 25, 2012)

i don't think the judgement is right in this case, as all the aspects of the image and it's manipulations are so commonplace... but it's not an insane ruling. just a wrong one.


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## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 25, 2012)

> Though the images are not identical, the judge ruled that Fielder's composition of the image, to include such features as the 'visual contrast' of the bright red bus and monochrome background, were the photographer's 'intellectual creation'.



This is clearly wrong, as Temple Island's MD can not possibly have been the first to take a photo of HoC in black & white and make the bus red, someone must have done this prior to August 2005 and therefore the 'intellectual creation' was done by someone else.


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## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 25, 2012)

I expect these people must be next on the hit list: http://www.popartuk.com/photography/london/red-bus-on-westminster-bridge-ph0408-poster.asp











Cheeky fucks have taken it one step beyond...


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## ruffneck23 (Jan 25, 2012)

its S.O.P.A gone mad


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## Puddy_Tat (Jan 25, 2012)

Hmm.

I'd have thought this ought to have been handled more as a trade mark / passing off thing than a copyright thing. (although I'm not any sort of lawyer)

The number of 'red bus on Westminster Bridge' photos there must be out there is huge, and tweaking a photo so that one bit is kept in colour against a B&W background is hardly an original concept.

And what about the number of occasions when you get a huddle of press photographers all taking pictures of the same thing? Is the first one to press the shutter going to claim copyright?

Alternatively, picture 2 looks shopped - the bus looks like one of the 'captive' routemasters used on the 9 and 15, neither of which cross Westminster Bridge in service - the proportions don't look right. Can a court issue an endorsement to a photoshop licence?


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## editor (Jan 25, 2012)

This artwork is near identical:






http://www.popartuk.com/photography/london/bus-on-westminster-bridge-00697-mini-wall-mural.asp


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## editor (Jan 25, 2012)

This one too, and it's not even been fiddled about with:






http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/a...deter-tourists-finds-VisitBritain-survey.html


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## editor (Jan 25, 2012)

In fact, it's a thorougly clichéd idea.





http://jeffayresgallery.com/gallery/england/e-big-ben-bus-westminster-bridge-b-w.html


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 25, 2012)

Red busses vs grey London sky and scenery is such a standard trope - I imagine there have been pictures trying to emphasise the contrast since there have been both busses and colour photography.


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## Hocus Eye. (Jan 25, 2012)

I don't see how anyone can copyright a cliché. The idea of a red object standing out on an otherwise black and white background is used regularly, especially in advertising. I remember the monochrome car advert with the little girl in a red coat being pulled out of the way of a moving lorry. I suppose the very first example was the hand-painted red flag in the film "Battleship Potemkin". A red London bus is just an everyday object and being seen against the Houses of Parliament is a common experience.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 25, 2012)

There was the girl in the red coat in Schindlers List more recently too. I don't think this judge was all that well up on the subject.


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## editor (Jan 25, 2012)

The photographic effect is so commonplace you can even do it with free phone apps.


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## editor (Jan 25, 2012)

The more I look at those two images, the more ridiculous the judgement appears. They're taken from completely different viewpoints (the "rip off" one has the river, the steps and the bridge spans in it, the other doesn't).


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## temper_tantrum (Jan 25, 2012)

Surely if you were this bloke's lawyers you'd get a clerk to spend a week or two trawling up every possible example you can find of the colour-on-B&W-background idea, created before both of these two, and in particular shots of London in that vein - ?
Then submit it all as evidence.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 25, 2012)

The thing is, it really shouldn't be a copyright case at all. It's clearly not the same photograph and they said as much. Even if the bloke _had_ invented the red thing on a b&w background idea, it _still_ wouldn't be a copyright issue, or certainly shouldn't be. This is a nuts decision and I hope it gets appealed and overturned quickly, or everyone will be trying it on.


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## Minnie_the_Minx (Jan 25, 2012)

You can buy those b&w and red London bus postcards at all the tourist places.  The red phone box is another common one

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=e...urce=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=x1kgT-3CItGg8gPQkPmsDg


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## ChrisD (Jan 25, 2012)

I think it's wrong and a dangerous precedent. How much would the court case have cost?
worrying mention of small claims cases in the AP article.


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