Oscar Winner Sues BBC & CBS For Copyright Infringement Of His Photo

from the something's-missing dept

Fri, Aug 6th 2010 3:09am — Mike Masnick

THREsq has an interesting story about how the guy, Louie Psihoyos, who won an Oscar for best documentary this year for The Cove, apparently has a pretty quick legal trigger finger against anyone using a photograph he took 15 years ago. He's sued a bunch of companies over the years, and the latest is the BBC and CBS. He claims that it cost him $100,000 to create the photograph, which can be seen here: Psihoyos Image

And, yes, THREsq is showing the photo as well. In these two cases, it seems like clear fair use, since we're both reporting on the photo itself. However, where the BBC potentially got into trouble is in using the same photo to illustrate an article about Intel betting on TV and video content. What's odd, however, is that the reason CBS is being sued is "that CBS Marketing appropriated it for commercial display at the 2009 Intel Developers Forum." This makes me wonder if CBS Marketing used the image at the event that the BBC was reporting on, leading the BBC to believe it had the ability to use that image. That could make the legal fight a bit more interesting.

However, the article also notes that Psihoyos has sued a bunch of times in the past over this photo as well. For example, a year ago, he sued Apple for the second time over this photo. While that lawsuit was eventually settled, the details suggest that Psihoyos was barking up the wrong tree on that lawsuit. It wasn't a case of Apple using the image, but a random iPhone app developer. You would think that Apple would have a clear DMCA safe harbor response, which would protect it from such a lawsuit, so I'm a bit surprised they ended up settling.

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Filed Under: copyright, louis psihoyos, photographs
Companies: bbc, cbs, intel

19 Comments

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cc (profile), 6 Aug 2010 @ 3:26am

$100k to create a photograph?? What a terrible waste of money, for something that can be done for a tiny fraction of that using 3d (easily available in 1995).

And what business sense does it make to spend $100k to create a photograph? None, because it's unlikely you'll ever recover all that money -- unless you use it to sue the world for massive damages, that is.
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Crosbie Fitch (profile), 6 Aug 2010 @ 3:35am

The work is not the copy
I daresay NASA spent a bit setting up the Space Shuttle. Does that make photos of it expensive?

Similarly, you could set a briefcase containing a million dollars alight in order to photograph it. Does that make the photo worth more than it cost to print it?

Work is not transferred into a recording. The recording is just a recording. The recording itself may have involved some work, but that's independent of the work being recorded, and independent of the cost of making a copy of the recording.

Copyright has got a lot to answer for.

The sooner it's abolished the better.
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JackSombra (profile), 6 Aug 2010 @ 4:02am

No safe harbour for the app store
How would apple have DMCA safe harbour protection?

Anything and everything that can appear on the app store has to be approved by them beforehand (and they charge for this) and then they make a direct percentage based profit from any sales of that app.

This very process removes their safe harbour protection and makes them a retailer, not a “service provider” which is who the safe harbour protections were designed for
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JackSombra (profile), 6 Aug 2010 @ 4:08am

Re:
Waste of money? Agreed
Easily doable in 1995? Not in the slightest, 3d software was rare and very expensive, machines that could run it even more so and people with good skills to do it rarest of all

People seem to regularly forget how far computing has come in the last 15 years
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Richard (profile), 6 Aug 2010 @ 4:36am

Re: Re:
Easily doable in 1995? Not in the slightest, 3d software was rare and very expensive, machines that could run it even more so and people with good skills to do it rarest of all

People seem to regularly forget how far computing has come in the last 15 years

No - it was easily do-able in 1995. A flick through the SIGGRAPH conference proceedings from the preceding 15 years (1980-1995) should easily convince you of that.

It could have been done using POVray on a moderate PC by anyone who had done a degree level graphics module and spent a month learning the syntax.
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Marcel de Jong (profile), 6 Aug 2010 @ 4:51am

Re:
Perhaps he bought all those tv-screens out of his own pocket?
But yeah, still a waste of money.
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Liam (profile), 6 Aug 2010 @ 4:54am

Re: Re:
Sorry to burst your bubble but one of my dad's friends was making his own 3D models and animations and the like in the early 90's. This was at home with only a personnel computer.

Heck, before then with the amiga we had raytracing renderers.

People seem to regularly exaggerate how far computing has come in the last 15 years.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2010 @ 5:53am

Interesting how shiny that floor is, yet Louie does not want to properly attribute the floors designer or pay him for his part in the photograph.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2010 @ 6:30am

I've seen this photo several times without the character in the middle. I don't if it's photoshopped but it makes me doubt the validity at all.
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Darcy from Arcy, 6 Aug 2010 @ 6:30am

Re: The work is not the copy
"I daresay NASA spent a bit setting up the Space Shuttle. Does that make photos of it expensive?"

The sole purpose of setting up the space shuttle was not to take a picture of it.
I daresay the sole purpose of setting up all the TVs was to take a picture of them. Even if he did want to try to catch everything on TV at that moment.

I daresay the rest of your points are reasonable though.
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Decline, 6 Aug 2010 @ 6:43am

Wait what about the copyright on all those images on the screeens? The producers of those shows should sue the company that made the software that Louie Psihoyos used to make the photo.
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Shaun, 6 Aug 2010 @ 7:54am

There's about 500 TV screens in the picture. At $200 each (cost and installation) that comes to the magical $100,000. There would obviously be other costs such as labour and room hire. He could easily argue the image cost that make to set up. Good luck to him.
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Vic B (profile), 6 Aug 2010 @ 10:09am

The back and forth argument over the Photoshop suggestion is pointless. That's what art work is, choice to create any which way you want and this guy wanted to do this real.
Should he have the right to sue anyone who uses his pic without authorization? I think so, particularly if -as in this case- it is a business using it to promote one of their activity/product.
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cc (profile), 6 Aug 2010 @ 10:30am

Re: Re:
Man, you really got your facts wrong. Let's take 3d in film... the first 3d in a movie was in 1977 in Star Wars. By 1992 they could do perfectly photorealistic 3d (on the Amiga with Lightwave), and we got films like Jurassic Park and Terminator 2. Toy Story came out in 1995.
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hmm, 6 Aug 2010 @ 11:40am

$1000 for the photo set-up and $99,000 to pay the guy in the centre (it's Elvis isn't it?!!?)..

or possible $1000 for the photo then $99,000 to destroy the tv screens afterward (otherwise re-selling/renting the screens would have reduced the cost quite a bit)...

Third option...$1000 for the photo, and £99,000 to edit out the girl that had her head in the guy's lap....
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Zacqary Adam Green (profile), 6 Aug 2010 @ 11:41am

Assuming that what CBS did with the photo is accurate, and that they actually were using it unlicensed with no attribution in an entirely different context, then this is probably the least stupid copyright lawsuit I've heard about in a long time. Still stupid, but at least it's not palpably ludicrous.
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Richard (profile), 6 Aug 2010 @ 1:07pm

Re:
That's what art work is, choice to create any which way you want and this guy wanted to do this real.

Maybe - but the point is that the value of the work and the rights of the artist don't depend one little bit on how much it actually cost to make. So the artist's protestations about how much it cost are the thing that is pointless.
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Cyberpoint (profile), 7 Aug 2010 @ 4:52am

His artwork
I'm with this guy, actually, which surprises me.

Go to any stock image site and you'll find hundreds of vaguely similar photoshopped or rendered images for sale. You'll find plenty for free as well.

But the point is this guy created it; he owns it. It doesn't matter whether anyone else thinks it has any artistic merit, or whether they believe his claim for how much it cost him to create, or whether they think he was a dumbass for not doing it with 3d animation; it's his.

So I think he's entitled to try and stop people like the BBC and CBS using it as a free stock image to illustrate unrelated stories.

For what it's worth, it looks to me like he really did hire a studio, set up 500 TVs, tune them in and probably take scores of photos to get the perfect one. Nice job.
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FarmerBob (profile), 7 Aug 2010 @ 1:22pm

Re: And what business sense does it take . . .
Someone with a government grant.
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