«

Having frequented the group sometime ago - and now scanning the posts
again - I would like to re-introduce myself with the following question
(purely hypothetical at present).

Let's assume I take a really great photograph (it could happen, there's
still time). It's digital, of course. The copyright for this image remains
with (me? my estate?) until some time (50 years?) after my death. What if a
member of my estate takes a copy of that image - with my permission - and
modifies it slightly so as not to make the image any less "great" but still
creates an image which is essentially the same as the original (I'm thinking
maybe a slight but significant crop, maybe some dodging & burning, etc.).
Would the new image take on its own copyright?

(Back to the sidelines for me, I guess).

--
Paul ============}
o o

// Live fast, die old //

Flickr pages at http://www.flickr.com/photos/pcbradley

Huh?

PcB wrote:
> Having frequented the group sometime ago - and now scanning the posts
> again - I would like to re-introduce myself with the following question
> (purely hypothetical at present).
>
> Let's assume I take a really great photograph (it could happen, there's
> still time). It's digital, of course. The copyright for this image remains
> with (me? my estate?) until some time (50 years?) after my death. What if a
> member of my estate takes a copy of that image - with my permission - and
> modifies it slightly so as not to make the image any less "great" but still
> creates an image which is essentially the same as the original (I'm thinking
> maybe a slight but significant crop, maybe some dodging & burning, etc.).
> Would the new image take on its own copyright?
>
> (Back to the sidelines for me, I guess).
>
> --
> Paul ============}
> o o
>
> // Live fast, die old //
>
> Flickr pages at http://www.flickr.com/photos/pcbradley

You have a number of issues here.

First off, a member of your estate can't do anything with your
permission because you can only give your permission if you are alive
and you only have an estate if you're not. So there's some vagueness
to your question, but it's not too much of an issue.

Let me preface this by saying "I am not an attorney, I just play one on
TV".

Once you have a copyright, it is your (or your estates). So if you
took Andy Warhol's Soup Can and put a big red X across it to protest
the sodium content, Warhol still owns the copyright. Now, if someone
else tried to infringe on "your" X over a Soupcan, that'a a legal
quagmire, but you could probably stop the infringement (as could Warhol
if he were alive to do so).

So one yours, always yours. But modifications might create a bigger
question.

Now, I think there are a couple of weird issues. If you are really
good and they put your art on display in public in California, I
believe you could not doctor the orifinal without permission of the
artist.

Hope this gets you closer to an answer.

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 21:32:03 GMT, "PcB"
<> wrote:

>Having frequented the group sometime ago - and now scanning the posts
>again - I would like to re-introduce myself with the following question
>(purely hypothetical at present).
>
>Let's assume I take a really great photograph (it could happen, there's
>still time). It's digital, of course. The copyright for this image remains
>with (me? my estate?) until some time (50 years?) after my death. What if a
>member of my estate takes a copy of that image - with my permission - and
>modifies it slightly so as not to make the image any less "great" but still
>creates an image which is essentially the same as the original (I'm thinking
>maybe a slight but significant crop, maybe some dodging & burning, etc.).
>Would the new image take on its own copyright?
>
>(Back to the sidelines for me, I guess).


Well,

Firstly, they have your permission so it has to be assumed you knew
the consequences. Secondly, you are dead so why bother?
I assume when you say 'dodging and burning', you will have been
cremated?

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"PcB" <> writes:
> Let's assume I take a really great photograph (it could happen, there's
> still time). It's digital, of course. The copyright for this image remains
> with (me? my estate?) until some time (50 years?) after my death. What if a
> member of my estate takes a copy of that image - with my permission - and
> modifies it slightly so as not to make the image any less "great" but still
> creates an image which is essentially the same as the original (I'm thinking
> maybe a slight but significant crop, maybe some dodging & burning, etc.).
> Would the new image take on its own copyright?

It's actually 70 years now, not 50. If I understand the question,
suppose you die in 2035. Sometime in 2080, your
great-great-granddaughter Jane makes this cropped version. Through
improved medical technology Jane lives til the year 2450. You're
asking whether Jane's version is copyrighted til 2520. The answer
seems to be yes. Of course one can never be sure whether the legal
system will last that long. Also, Disney pays Congress to increaes
the length of copyright every few decades, to make sure that the
copyright of the original Mickey Mouse films (from the 1920's) never
expire. So anything copyrighted now is copyrighted pretty much
forever, until we overthrow that mouse.

I think we have a more basic issue when it comes to copyrights of photos and
their use of them. With their being so many people living on this planet in
2006 and given that digital cameras have made photography more popular now
then in the entire 100 plus years previous combined one has to wonder...

When there are 3 million shots of the golden gate bridge in fog with a cargo
ship going under, does copyright make a damn bit of difference? My feeling
is at that point and with any subject that has been photographed add nosium
copyright doesn't make a bit of difference. If out of those 3 million shots
500,000 are from the same angle and are basically the same shot who owns the
copyright? I say no one, it is a moot point.

So unless you have a picture of something that is near to impossible for
others to duplicate with their own camera, worrying about copyrights for the
vast majority of us is a waste of time.

R

"Hebee Jeebes" <> wrote in message
news:45342da1$0$34540$...
>I think we have a more basic issue when it comes to copyrights of photos
>and their use of them. With their being so many people living on this
>planet in 2006 and given that digital cameras have made photography more
>popular now then in the entire 100 plus years previous combined one has to
>wonder...
>
> When there are 3 million shots of the golden gate bridge in fog with a
> cargo ship going under, does copyright make a damn bit of difference? My
> feeling is at that point and with any subject that has been photographed
> add nosium copyright doesn't make a bit of difference. If out of those 3
> million shots 500,000 are from the same angle and are basically the same
> shot who owns the copyright? I say no one, it is a moot point.

1. Copyright protection doesn't require novelty, only originality. That
means that, even if those 500,000 shots look the same, as long as each was
created without reference to the other, they are all independently protected
by copyright upon the moment of fixation in a tangible medium, i.e. when
saved to the CF card.

2. Copyright infringement analysis is far more complex than simply saying,
"this picture looks like that picture." I don't have the time to get into a
full description here, but an important component of the process is
determining access by the accused infringer to the original, and then
weighing the amount of access against the similarity with the original.

>
> So unless you have a picture of something that is near to impossible for
> others to duplicate with their own camera, worrying about copyrights for
> the vast majority of us is a waste of time.

Sorry. Not even close.

>
> R
>

PTravel wrote:
> "Hebee Jeebes" <> wrote in message
> news:45342da1$0$34540$...
>> I think we have a more basic issue when it comes to copyrights of photos
>> and their use of them. With their being so many people living on this
>> planet in 2006 and given that digital cameras have made photography more
>> popular now then in the entire 100 plus years previous combined one has to
>> wonder...
>>
>> When there are 3 million shots of the golden gate bridge in fog with a
>> cargo ship going under, does copyright make a damn bit of difference? My
>> feeling is at that point and with any subject that has been photographed
>> add nosium copyright doesn't make a bit of difference. If out of those 3
>> million shots 500,000 are from the same angle and are basically the same
>> shot who owns the copyright? I say no one, it is a moot point.
>
> 1. Copyright protection doesn't require novelty, only originality. That
> means that, even if those 500,000 shots look the same, as long as each was
> created without reference to the other, they are all independently protected
> by copyright upon the moment of fixation in a tangible medium, i.e. when
> saved to the CF card.
>
> 2. Copyright infringement analysis is far more complex than simply saying,
> "this picture looks like that picture." I don't have the time to get into a
> full description here, but an important component of the process is
> determining access by the accused infringer to the original, and then
> weighing the amount of access against the similarity with the original.
>
>> So unless you have a picture of something that is near to impossible for
>> others to duplicate with their own camera, worrying about copyrights for
>> the vast majority of us is a waste of time.
>
> Sorry. Not even close.

Hi...

If photographs are art, in the same sense that images of oil on canvas
is art, then I'm curious ?

How is it that the original Mona Lisa is worth gazillions of dollars,
yet a phony copy so close to identical that it takes reams of
experts dozens of years to detect it is virtually worthless?

Take care.

Ken



art

"Ken Weitzel" <> wrote in message
newsyXYg.156191$R63.27211@pd7urf1no...
> PTravel wrote:
>> "Hebee Jeebes" <> wrote in message
>> news:45342da1$0$34540$...
>>> I think we have a more basic issue when it comes to copyrights of photos
>>> and their use of them. With their being so many people living on this
>>> planet in 2006 and given that digital cameras have made photography more
>>> popular now then in the entire 100 plus years previous combined one has
>>> to wonder...
>>>
>>> When there are 3 million shots of the golden gate bridge in fog with a
>>> cargo ship going under, does copyright make a damn bit of difference? My
>>> feeling is at that point and with any subject that has been photographed
>>> add nosium copyright doesn't make a bit of difference. If out of those 3
>>> million shots 500,000 are from the same angle and are basically the same
>>> shot who owns the copyright? I say no one, it is a moot point.
>>
>> 1. Copyright protection doesn't require novelty, only originality. That
>> means that, even if those 500,000 shots look the same, as long as each
>> was created without reference to the other, they are all independently
>> protected by copyright upon the moment of fixation in a tangible medium,
>> i.e. when saved to the CF card.
>>
>> 2. Copyright infringement analysis is far more complex than simply
>> saying, "this picture looks like that picture." I don't have the time to
>> get into a full description here, but an important component of the
>> process is determining access by the accused infringer to the original,
>> and then weighing the amount of access against the similarity with the
>> original.
>>
>>> So unless you have a picture of something that is near to impossible for
>>> others to duplicate with their own camera, worrying about copyrights for
>>> the vast majority of us is a waste of time.
>>
>> Sorry. Not even close.
>
> Hi...
>
> If photographs are art, in the same sense that images of oil on canvas is
> art, then I'm curious ?

The question isn't whether photographs are art, but whether they are
protectable works of authorship within the meaning of the U.S. Copyright
Act. The answer is, yes, they are.

>
> How is it that the original Mona Lisa is worth gazillions of dollars,
> yet a phony copy so close to identical that it takes reams of
> experts dozens of years to detect it is virtually worthless?

Leaving aside, for a moment, the question of what is a "phony copy" (as
distinguished from a "real copy"?), only in movies can a fake Mona Lisa fool
"reams of experts [for] dozens of years." However, the answer to your
question is, "scarcity." There is only one Mona Lisa, whereas there are
many, many copies.

>
> Take care.
>
> Ken
>
>
>
> art

> If photographs are art, in the same sense that images of oil on canvas
> is art, then I'm curious ?
>
> How is it that the original Mona Lisa is worth gazillions of dollars,
> yet a phony copy so close to identical that it takes reams of
> experts dozens of years to detect it is virtually worthless?
>
> Take care.
>
> Ken

Not sure of the players but several years ago a reasonably well known
painter, was charged with plagerism when she used a photograph as the
basis of a painting. Her problem was the photograph was from a pro
photographer who saw the work at a gallery. He filed charges and was
awarded a fairly substantial settlement. There was no denial from the
artist, her argument was she was making art from a photograph, but it
was a direct copy of the work, very obvious when the two works were put
side by side, yes hers in color his in black and white. The
photographer said that he would have given rights for her to do the
painting for a few hundred dollars if she had asked.

Tom