Copyright

Nowadays your government will stick you on the first plane singing carpet karaoke as you fly across the Atlantic just on Uncle Sams whim.

Where would this leave photographs of say an orange???
or even an apple??

I guess if company A uses a distinctive colour-popped image of an orange on all their branded goods, and then company B comes along and uses a similar image, that might be an issue. If company B used an apple they would be fine... as you can't compare apples to oranges

Is this issue something that should worry photographers per se, or is it more a concern for people who decide how they use images in marketing etc?

Apple seemed to get away with it (at a price).

Gateway once successfully sued another company over making
a stretch computer cover which had B&W COW markings and spots
which Gateway had trade-marked. link

I think the Friesians should sue Gateway - they had the black and white cow first .

Gateway case is a trademark infringement as was apple record company against apple iTunes. Totally different to copyright infringement

Just don't photograph a part eaten apple


How do you stand if a "professional" photographer took a landscape shot from say Symonds Yat. Bearing in mind the limited scope for landscape shots from there that is really going to screw the tourist industry and makes a complete mockery of "view points" on an ordnance map

If it's based on the single colour(red) on a mono background is there not a case to answer to the film maker of some years back that had a young girl in a red coat (I can't remember the name or the film)

Bernard

You cannot copyright an apple however you can trademark it. There is a distinct differrnce

Para 1.11 link

In the case referred to here, the ideas are similar but neither one is a copy of the other. Aren't the tourist shops full of pictures and postcards similar to these that could have inspired both creators in the first place?! Is there any proof that photographer B knew of photographer A's creation? I cannot see how the judge decided that one.

John

This could have serious repercussions for stock photgraphers...there's so many similar images on the stock agencies websites that the photographers could all be suing each other over who took a picture of the skyline of Hong Kong at sunset first, for example.

I think the difference is that corporate identity was involved, just like the battle between Apple and Apple.

That's why the case was brought, but the law applied was copyright law, which is blind to corporate identity. It seems clear from the judgement that the judge struggled a bit with this. And, if I've read it correctly, much turned on the evidence that the defendant was aware of and inspired by the original photograph and set out to achieve a similar expression. In short, he chose not to pay a licence fee for the original photo (as others had done). No reason why he should have - he may have been unsatisfied with it - but he then set out to copy key elements of the original. As the judgement suggests, if the firm has engaged a freelance photographer to go and take a photo incorporating the same ingredients, there would have been no difficulty. Unless he/she too had known of and taken into account the original photograph!

I am not sure the judge's reasoning is watertight, but even if it is, I don't see a rush to the courts. The finding is more narrowly drawn on the particular circumstances of the case than a summary might suggest.