Odd Copyright Question: Is This Illegal?

[BillsBayou]

I found a bit of advice on the web which boils down to this:

Going out into the field with an Ansel Adams photo in your hand and duplicating the shot with your camera is illegal under US Copyright law.

Is that true?

How about, is it unethical?

[cdifoto]

You can't copyright a mountain, or a landscape, or a scene.

You can only copyright the ACTUAL work. So taking your own shot of the same scene isn't a copyright violation. Copying the actual print or negative without express permission from the owner is against the law.

Unethical? I dunno. I'd be flattered that someone would trek out in the middle of BFE to try and capture something I captured.

[cosworth]

I found a bit of advice on the web which boils down to this:

Going out into the field with an Ansel Adams photo in your hand and duplicating the shot with your camera is illegal under US Copyright law.

Is that true?

How about, is it unethical?

Not true. Unthecial? No.

If you can take a better picture than Adams did at the same spot more power to you.

[BillsBayou]

I could imagine a photography class out in the field.

"So as you see, class, the proper exposure for the scene is 1/100th of a second at f/4. Please set your cameras to these settings," and the line of students all set their cameras up to capture the scene.
Bill takes the first exposure and exclaims "It's MINE! If any of you take that photo, I'll sue the pants off of each and every one of you!"

[cosworth]

Two people/cameras cannot occupy the same place and time. It's physically impossible.

Every image will be different.

We're not even taking into consideration post processing either...which Adams did A LOT of.

[KirkHMB]

Going out into the field with an Ansel Adams photo in your hand and duplicating the shot with your camera

Not only untrue, nor unethical, but also unlikely. Unless you converted to a view camera, managed to revert the landscape a few decades..........



If you can take a better picture than Adams did at the same spot more power to you.

Yeah, I'd be happy to get a picture 1/2 as good as his, much less better.

[cdifoto]

If you can take a better picture than Adams did at the same spot more power to you.

Yeah, I'd be happy to get a picture 1/2 as good as his, much less better.

Pfft. Are you kidding? I could do that with my ass tied behind my back. :rolleyes:



:lol:

[airfrogusmc]

Yeah take a 4X5 or and 8X10 viewcamera and spend years learning the zone system and give it a shot. Nothing will be the same as when AA took his, clouds, sky, weather exact location. Hernandez is not the same as when he took Moonrise.
To answer your original question there is no copyright infringement and I wouldn't choose to go and photograph things that he did because he did it SO WELL. There are plenty of things other than that in this big ole world and maybe we can bring our own vision to it instead of trying to bring our vision to something that has been done SO GOOD. Kinda like remaking a classic film; WHY?

[canoflan]

Common sense should prevail here. The one question is what if you didn't have the photo and you were in Utah and happened to be in the same spot and saw the beauty of the light and scenery together and framed it up and shot it the same way (give or take a pixel), then decided to go home and B&W it yourself, then a month or so later a great friend showed you a picture of Ansel Adams's work a few decades before. You would probably say, "I recognize that and shot it not too long ago," vs, "I wonder if I am infringing on this copyright."

What about applying similar techniques in photoshop to get the same look? Can a look be copyrighted? Frankly, it would never end and no one could be creative for fear of the communistic photography police banging the door down.

Shouldn't take much to figure out.

Pat

[cosworth]

Footloose is being redone. I'm sure someone is excited about that.

[JWright]

I found a bit of advice on the web which boils down to this:

Going out into the field with an Ansel Adams photo in your hand and duplicating the shot with your camera is illegal under US Copyright law.

Is that true?

How about, is it unethical?

I'd like to know where you found this little gem of wisdom...

Here's where you find the correct information: http://www.copyright.gov/

[BillsBayou]

I'd like to know where you found this little gem of wisdom...

Here's where you find the correct information: http://www.copyright.gov/

If I said the source, the thread would turn into a hate thread. Trust me, I've considered the source as someone who knows less about the law than he knows about photography.

It's just the sort of thing that makes me go "Wha?"

[ibdb]

I guessed your source (and I hope this doesn't spoil the fun ;) ), but I think the difference would be in going out with said photo in hand with the deliberate intention to take your own duplicate so that you could sell your copy of the image or avoid having the pay a license fee to the original owner of the copyright.

[cosworth]

Ken Rockwell needs to stop and think of the children.

[ibdb]

Ken Rockwell needs to stop and think of the children.
I didn't say it. I didn't even imply it. But I did guess it in about 1/2 a second. ;):lol:;):lol:

[JWright]

I've looked at the article and images in question and there is enough similarity to possibly support a suit. However, I think the only reason this particular incident even occured was because someone at Getty Images made an issue of it.

I always think of a certain place in Oregon where the only location to adequately shoot one of the lighthouses is from a parking lot along the highway. Every image I have seen of that particular lighthouse, including my own, are all very similar. Does that mean that all of us can get sued for "unlawfully deriving" our images from the very first ones taken there? I seriously doubt it...

Here is a link to the Google images page (http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-27,GGLJ:en&q=Heceta+Head+lighthouse&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi)for the Heceta Head Lighthouse. You can really see what I mean. There's even a similar image in post #9 in this thread (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=101539) here...

[airfrogusmc]

Footloose is being redone. I'm sure someone is excited about that.

:lol::lol::lol: DAMN....You know it ain't gonna be as good as the original and the sound track just roooocks :lol::lol:

[Mark_Cohran]

I've looked at the article and images in question and there is enough similarity to possibly support a suit. However, I think the only reason this particular incident even occured was because someone at Getty Images made an issue of it.

I always think of a certain place in Oregon where the only location to adequately shoot one of the lighthouses is from a parking lot along the highway. Every image I have seen of that particular lighthouse, including my own, are all very similar. Does that mean that all of us can get sued for "unlawfully deriving" our images from the very first ones taken there? I seriously doubt it...

Here is a link to the Google images page (http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-27,GGLJ:en&q=Heceta+Head+lighthouse&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi)for the Heceta Head Lighthouse. You can really see what I mean. There's even a similar image in post #9 in this thread (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=101539) here...

Yep. I've shot that lighthouse many times under many different weather and lighting conditions as have many thousands of other photographers. I sure don't lose any sleep worrying about copyright infringement.

[StewartR]

This was discussed elsewhere (http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=005F7F) about 4 years ago.

[Glenn NK]

I could imagine a photography class out in the field.

"So as you see, class, the proper exposure for the scene is 1/100th of a second at f/4. Please set your cameras to these settings," and the line of students all set their cameras up to capture the scene.
Bill takes the first exposure and exclaims "It's MINE! If any of you take that photo, I'll sue the pants off of each and every one of you!"

Well that pretty well puts things into the proper perspective doesn't it?

Well said.

One could even take this further; they all have the same camera, lens, and take turns using the fixed tripod.:lol:

[20droger]

Two small things:

1. You cannot copyright anything you had no hand in creating. Neither Adams nor the hypthethical photographer created the scene, therefore the scene is not (and cannot be) copyrighted. Click away all you want.

2. Every photo is a separte work of art. Each separate work of art has its own copyright, independent of all others. Bill the Student can go to hell and stay there.

Now, striving to replicate Adams image is legally fine. Artistically, though, it is probably a waste of effort. Even if you are photographically superior to Adams (a very big if), you would still wind up with a replicant of his previous work. No new replicant will overshadow his original.

This is why scupters study, but don't try to replicate, the works of Michelangelo and da Vinci.