
Copywrong - sizzle
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/20/crooner-rights-spat
======
acabal
One of the most tragic ideas to evolve in this century is the idea of
"intellectual property"\--that you can own an idea for years, sometimes tens
or hundreds of years. That term covers things outside of copyright, like
patents, but the damage the idea as a whole in its present incarnation does to
our long-term culture is the same.

Ideas are intangible, not property, and someone can think the same thing as
you without ever having met you or heard of you. A more accurate term than
"intellectual property" would be a "short, government-protected monopoly on an
idea". But we call it property, and after many years of calling that, it
insidiously starts seeming to us like _real_ property, and not the temporary
monopoly it _really_ is.

There's room for short, temporary monopolies. As the framers realized,
copyright and patents are critical to fostering innovation and culture.
Unfortunately, "short" went from being a very reasonable few years, to a
slightly less reasonable 20ish years, to now, where if you publish a work
today the chances of it being available to the public within _150 years_ are
slim. Do a grandchild's grandchildren deserve to lord over something created
by a dusty ancestor centuries ago?

In a strange and sad way, our IP regime today means that individual authors
are unlikely to be remembered by history 100 years from now. Look at Project
Gutenberg or Wikiart: hundreds of people from all over the world volunteer to
lovingly scan, transcribe, format, categorize, and distribute works from the
last few centuries. They do this because that work belongs to the public now,
and their efforts keep the memories and impact of those works and authors
alive. Do you think anyone will do the same for _your_ work 100 years from now
on the pain of legal threats and huge fines, or is it more likely it'll fade
into oblivion?

~~~
icebraining
_As the framers realized, copyright and patents are critical to fostering
innovation and culture._

Well, at least Jefferson was initially opposed to the idea, which he (rightly)
viewed as a monopoly:

 _Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the
progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive
fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in
exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less
susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the
thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as
long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces
itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess
himself of it… . That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the
globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his
condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature,
when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening
their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and
have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.
Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property._

Later he acquiesced, but with a much stricter proposal than what eventually
was written in the Bill of Rights:

    
    
      Art. 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in 
      literature and their own inventions in the arts for a term not exceeding — years
      but for no longer term and no other purpose.

~~~
galaxyLogic
I don't quite get the point of discussing or arguing about what the framers
"meant". They're not God or something.

It may of course be useful in trying to understand how the current supreme
court comes up with its decisions. I personally don't buy that law should be
interpreted based on the "original intent" of a few dead persons, who had
opinions about it.

Courts interpret the laws any way they want, that is the law, right? If they
seem to get lost with it, then congress should change the laws so there is
less room for mis-interpretation. What should matter is democracy now.

~~~
Tloewald
Well, there are two points.

First, we live in a constitutional democracy. The constitution is supposed to
be the set of meta-rules which dictate how and what the government can do.
Like it or not this turns out to come down to literary interpretation. There
are two major schools of thought about how one should interpret literature,
and I prefer the one that suggests the context in which something was written
should be taken into consideration (the other school, which happens to
dominate departments of English Literature, is kind of nutty).

You may think that constitutional democracy is a Bad Idea, in which case feel
free to argue that point. But within that framework, we live by rules, and
what those rules _mean_ \-- or more importantly, what people _think_ they mean
-- matters.

This kind of thinking is unappealing to programmers and engineers -- it's a
concept generally known as "social construction". Our government is a social
construct. So is money. So is bitcoin. So are mathematical proofs (!) -- at
bottom, a mathematical proof is an argument that convinces mathematicians. If
you don't want the FBI to shoot you, you might want to consider that having a
shared understanding of the laws they believe they are enforcing is a Good
Idea.

Second, it's interesting to realize that most of the stupid stuff happening
today was anticipated, and the fine points argued over, by a group of smart
guys over two hundred years ago. It's sad that the level of debate today comes
down to arguing over what these guys meant by something, especially when most
of those doing the arguing lack basic comprehension skills.

~~~
galaxyLogic
> the context in which something was written should be taken into
> consideration

Yes surely if we want to _understand_ what they meant when they wrote their
opinions. But those were just their opinions. They were not the law that was
passed. A law is not an opinion. What is it? It is a text. Who interprets it?
The Judges.

For a judge to say: "I rule this way because I think this is what Jefferson
wanted" is a cop-out. It would be more honest for them to say: "I rule the law
this way because I'm the one who interprets the law here".

~~~
sjwright
Your argument is that law should be treated like a clean-room implementation
with zero original context. The original interpretation is apparently
meaningless. But _interpretations by random judges_ are fine? And it's
appropriate for these random decisions to become precedent?

I've never understood this mindset. It's treating the English language like
machine code, as if it could be written with a degree of deterministic
certainty. Our human language is littered with reasonable unwritten
assumptions, words that slowly evolve, words that completely change meaning.

If we happen to know what the original authors of the bill meant with their
words, why should we substitute their known interpretation with that of some
random judge?

Is the American system really suffering from too much Jeffersonian-ism? I'd
argue the opposite.

~~~
Tloewald
Hilariously, this is the rival school of thought in literary criticism. The
author's intent doesn't matter.

------
sehrope
An interesting solution I've heard[1] to reform both copyright ( _and possibly
patent_ ) law is to require compounding annual fees to maintain them. For
example if someone writes a new song or book, we could have a short "free"
copyright period. After that, creator ( _or more accurately, the rights
holder_ ) would need to pay an annual fee to maintain their copyright. The fee
would increase by some percentage each year.

If the value of the work is greater than the fee, then it'd be in the
interests of the rights holder to pay the fee and maintain the copyright, for
example to be able to license it out to others. If it's not, then the
copyright would expire and the work would enter the public domain.

A high enough interest rate for the compounding would ensure that everything
is eventually in the public domain. For works that are repeatedly extended,
say Mickey Mouse, the public will receive the fees collected for each of the
extensions until it enters the public domain.

This also has the interesting effect of incentivizing the creation of _new_
works as there wouldn't be any fees associated with them for the initial term.

There's obviously a lot more details to handle such as having a central
registry, inflation adjustments, differentiating between new works and derived
works, and how to handle works created prior to the introduction of a system
like this. Still I think it's an interesting proposal.

[1]: _I don 't remember where exactly but probably here on HN._

~~~
repsilat
The idea that something will enter the public domain once its market price has
been established is nice, but my problem with this scheme is that it needs so
much fine-tuning. How should the prices increase? Exponentially, adjusted for
inflation? Will the prices be much too low for much too long, or will they
rocket up at unreasonable rates for some kinds of media?

I think the best scheme for works entering the public domain is modelled on
_eminent_ domain. That is, a work may be "seized" (and its owner duly
compensated) by a government when the utility to the public of it entering the
public domain is great enough.

Obviously there would need to be a lot of structure around it, because it's
going to happen all the time. There might have to be a registry of copyright
owners. There might also be taxes or regular charges levied as in your system.

~~~
masklinn
> Will the prices be much too low for much too long, or will they rocket up at
> unreasonable rates for some kinds of media?

It would actually make sense to have both, it would essentially softcap
copyright durations.

------
teachingaway
Side-by-side: [http://i.imgur.com/vGmlRj3.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/vGmlRj3.jpg)

The photographer is in over her head. She owns her photo, but she doesn't own
the "idea" of the back of Rod Stewart's head. Not even Rod Stewart owns that
"idea."

And while we can't just copy her photo, we can take another photo that
expresses the same idea (Stewart's head). And since there aren't that many way
to photograph Rod Stewart's rear-dome, the photos would have to be essentially
identical for any copyright infringement. The photos here are not identical:
the light is different, the hair is messed up differently... it looks like a
losing case.

~~~
duncanawoods
You might be right but it reminds me of the red bus case which may indicate
the changing scope of copyright in the future:

[http://azrights.com/media/uncategorized/2013/11/photographer...](http://azrights.com/media/uncategorized/2013/11/photographers-
photography-copyright-and-the-red-bus-case/)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Island_v_New_English_Tea...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Island_v_New_English_Teas)

~~~
mamurphy
As detailed in this blog post ([http://permissionmachine.com/blog/rod-stewart-
sued-for-recre...](http://permissionmachine.com/blog/rod-stewart-sued-for-
recreating-a-photo-of-the-back-of-his-head/)), the Rod Stewart photos look
much more similar to the disputed photos in Temple Island v. New English Teas
(the claimant won in that suit).

When I viewed the side-by-side comparison, my reaction was "wow, she actually
has a point!" not "this is a frivolous suit." Both photos show Rod with a
black, long sleeve garment, show only his head, neck, and left shoulder, and
have not dissimilar lighting and hair styling.

------
dghf
> But suppose that a Web site, awesomestuff.com, ran an item that said
> something like “This piece on copyright is a great read!” with a hyperlink
> on the word “piece” to my article’s page on The New Yorker’s Web site....
> Effectively, awesomestuff.com has stolen content from newyorker.com, just as
> the compiler of “Most Thoughtful Essays” stole content from me.

This has to be the single most wrong-headed thing I've seen written on
hyperlinks. To suggest that telling people where they can find an article is
morally equivalent to copying that article and distributing the copies ... to
paraphrase Charles Babbage, "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of
confusion of ideas that could provoke such a proposition."

~~~
ejk314
I can understand how he would see 'framing' as copying a website into another
page. But he goes on to argue that we accept this form of 'copying' because of
the same 'a visual change is experienced as a physical change' mumbo jumbo.
No. Clearly, we accept this form of copying because framing the whole page
still shows the page's adds and only increases revenue for the 'copied' site.
There would obviously be legal ramifications if you embedded the page into
your site then removed their adds and replaced them with your own.

------
blinks
> Either way, when you’re reading a linked page, you may still > be “at”
> awesomestuff.com, as clicking the back button on > your browser can
> instantly confirm. Effectively, > awesomestuff.com has stolen content from
> newyorker.com, just > as the compiler of “Most Thoughtful Essays” stole
> content > from me.

"At" is the wrong word. The browser is requesting content. If it's requesting
content from awesomestuff.com that only newyorker.com has permission to copy,
that's a copyright problem.

This is a very odd metaphor for a journalist to mistake. It's as if any
reference they make in a piece is violating the copyright of the referenced
item. Is reference that difficult of a concept to grasp?

~~~
angersock
You know, we put so much damned effort into getting the 'net to have documents
that could trivially link to other documents and be available to everyone, it
seems unsurprising that it is difficult to retrofit it with copyright
protection measures.

------
giarc
Album [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c5/Storyteller-
_T...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c5/Storyteller-
_The_Complete_Anthology_\(Cover\).jpg)

Las Vegas Show
[http://www.caesarspalace.com/images/Property/clv/events/RodS...](http://www.caesarspalace.com/images/Property/clv/events/RodStewart_TheHits_16x9_430x242.jpg)

They are quite similar.

~~~
blt
Heh. Without knowing the images, I guessed that the old version was a blurry
old 35mm photo and they wanted something higher resolution. That would be an
interesting question - is a technically superior, but similar looking, image
still a copy? But that is not the case here.

~~~
spellboots
35mm photos are very high resolution - between 87 and 175 megapixels according
to [http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/film-
resolution.htm](http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/film-resolution.htm)

------
angersock
So, the original purpose of copyright was to ensure that content creators were
encouraged to release things for the public at large. This in turn is a two-
part process: first, creating content for consumption, and second,
distributing that content.

I don't think it should be even _slightly_ controversial to suggest that we've
democratized and solved the second part of that problem (provided things like
net neutrality pass, but that's a larger issue). There is _no_ reason that a
creator who wants to put out content into the public domain can't do so
(again, barring government censorship or what have you--arguably not even
then) in a way that is likely to be preserved into perpituity.

It's the first part of the problem which is what people will wring hands
about, refusing to believe that creators would ever spontaneously decide to
make something for no apparent and immediate payoff (fanfiction and deviant
artists and HN commentators clearly notwithstanding) and put it out there.

With things like DA, with Patreon, with Kickstarter, with Steam Greenlight,
with Amazon and everything else, it's clear that we're almost done solving the
first issue--again, if you believe it's an issue at all.

~~~
chc
I feel like you're putting this in a way that ignores the historical context
in which copyright arose. Copyright came about in response to _too much_
copying thanks to the printing press. The ultimate purpose of copyright was to
encourage the progress of the arts and learning, yes — but the immediate
purpose was was to make sure that authors would be fairly compensated for
their work, instead of printers being able to just take any work they could
get their hands on and profit off it without the creator of the work having
any say in how his work was used or claim on the fruits of his labor. The idea
was that authors were skilled workers practicing a valuable craft, and that
the mere fact that distributors _could_ ignore them in practice did not mean
they should be entitled to do so with impunity.

Nobody ever though that nobody would create anything without copyright. The
idea was simply that skilled creators were not being duly compensated for
their work, and that if they were fairly compensated, they would have more
time to devote to creating as well as more incentive to continue.

------
rev_null
The writer doesn't seem to understand the concept of natural rights. They
aren't inalienable because we declare them to be so, they are inalienable
because it's actually impossible to deny people these rights.

 _The First Amendment protects individual expression, for example, because
it’s in society’s best interest to have a robust debate—not because each
person has a right to say what he or she thinks simply by virtue of being
human._

In reality, by virtue of having the ability to speak, humans do have a right
to say whatever they want. Oppressive regimes can certainly take steps to
punish people for speaking their minds, but it's pretty difficult to stop
someone from voicing an opinion in the first place.

 _So the right to make copies was imagined by the Framers as a way to
encourage the writing of books by individuals for the good of an educated
citizenry. But, if you are a natural-rights person and you think that
individual rights are inalienable, then you don’t recognize the priority of
the public domain. You think that society has no claim on works created by
individuals._

Once an individual chooses to share an idea, anyone who has that idea can
naturally share it. Copyright is not an inalienable right.

~~~
galaxyLogic
Right, copyright is not an "inalienable right". It is a law. We can and maybe
should argue against that law as it currently stands. What I think we should
argue against is that whatever created Mickey Mouse, or whoever BOUGHT that
copyright, should have the right for it for 100 years. It's a bit like saying
whoever built the fortress can rule the land from now on. But check-out Carl
Barks. Does he or his estate own the copyright to his masterful art:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Barks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Barks)

Currently the copyright law is truly married to the estate txation.

~~~
galaxyLogic
You may have seen a lot of bad cartoons from Disney but Barks was one of he
most important visual artists of 20th century, if you can get to his works.
Disney doesn't seem to advertize his works apart from anybody else for obvious
reasons.

------
galaxyLogic
" ... when you’re reading a linked page, you may still be “at”
awesomestuff.com, as clicking the back button on your browser can instantly
confirm. Effectively, awesomestuff.com has stolen content from newyorker.com "

This I think is based on misunderstanding of how http and the web work.

Somebody at awesomestuff created a link to newyorker.com. They basically just
told you the ADDRESS of newyorker.com. They created a ROAD-SIGN and YOU
followed that. You clicked the link and the website newyorker.com willingly
served you the content. That content was NEVER COPIED to the server at
awesomestuff.com.

So only thing newyorker could accuse them of doing is telling people their
website address. If they have told you that address and you write it down and
copy that surely that is not copyright infringement because New Yorker has
NEVER CLAIMED they own the right to their website address. It is public
information.

~~~
legulere
The best comparison for IFrames would be that they cut the article out of a
new yorker and glued it into the book

~~~
galaxyLogic
That I think would be fraudulent misrepresentation of who owns the content in
question. In practice nobody would do that a thousand times and if they did it
would still not be "copying". They would have had to pay for all the "copies"
of the paper from which they cut off the article. They would have paid for all
those "copies" and thus they would have the right to distribute them (unless a
private contract prohibited that).

Misrepresenting the origin of the content could be considered fraud. But if
you never implied that you created that content then maybe not.

------
DanBC
I wonder how much traffic awesomestuff.com got as a result of this?

The point the author makes about linking, deep-linking, and framing, is
confused and weird.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_linking](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_linking)

Several deep-linking cases have gone to courts in various parts of the world.

------
bambax
We've had copyright for over two hundred years, so we can judge the difference
between before and after.

In any artistic field (music, painting, literature, sculpture...) the best
works were produced _before_ copyright existed.

The best and most interesting output of the human mind since 1790 were not in
the arts but in the hard sciences, outside of the realm of copyright.

It's understandable that "copyright holders" would fight hard to maintain the
status quo or even extend protections indefinitely; what I find baffling, and
truly depressing, is that everyone else lets it happen.

~~~
thisishugo
> The best and most interesting output of the human mind since > 1790 were not
> in the arts but in the hard sciences, outside > of the realm of copyright.

This is the most utterly ridiculous claim I have heard in a long time, not
least because what constitutes "the best works" of art is _entirely_
subjective.

~~~
bambax
It can't be both subjective and ridiculous.

If it's subjective then I'm right for the reason that I'm judge and jury.

If it's not then I can be wrong, but you have to make an argument for it,
based on some objective criteria.

~~~
thisishugo
An opinion isn't right or wrong, it just is, no matter how strongly you assert
it. And it certainly is open to ridicule: would you take seriously someone
claiming, with absolute sincerity, to be the sovereign ruler of the Gumdrop
Kingdom?

------
khaki54
I couldn't get past the author claiming that linking to an article in its
published location is somehow akin to stealing the article and publishing it
in a compilation book without permission.

It's more like pointing someone to a bookstore and saying "check out this
great book".

------
TheLoneWolfling
Ultimately, the biggest issue with copywrong is this: on a rather fundamental
level computers operate by _copying_ , not _moving_. I mean: even the MOV
instruction on most (if not all) instruction set copies data without
overwriting the original. RAM (tends to) have non-destructive reads. The
processor caches _everywhere_. Etc.

Sure, you could potentially talk about fixation as opposed to temporary copies
- but that boundary is fuzzy and getting fuzzier all the time. What happens
when the process gets paged to disk? What happens if the process crashes and
dumps a crash report? Or worse - when memsistor RAM starts becoming available?

Also, there's a related problem as to whom takes responsibility for a machine
doing something. What happens when you walk by a security camera with a
copywronged painting? If you visit webpage A that contains an iframe pointing
to website B containing copywronged work, who is responsible for the copywrong
infringement? Is it you? You own the computer. But you never did anything that
you could have known was a violation. Is it the person who wrote your web
browser, as they were the person who wrote the instructions to follow iframes?
Is it the person who wrote webpage A? But they didn't ever actually do
anything infringing - they provided instructions which if followed without
checking copywrong restrictions would potentially be a violation.

Personally, the entire idea of "intellectual property" is fundamentally
misguided, but that is another matter.

------
smacktoward
_> I have granted The New Yorker an exclusive license to the article for a
limited period... If, a year from now, someone else, without my permission,
reprints my article in a book called “The Most Thoughtful and Penetrating
Essays of 2014,” I can complain that my right to make copies is being violated
and, if the court agrees with me, legally suppress the book... Although not
the author of this piece, you, too, would likely feel that the publisher of
“Most Thoughtful Essays” was a bandit._

 _> But suppose that a Web site ran an item that said something like “This
piece on copyright is a great read!” with a hyperlink on the word “piece” to
my article’s page on The New Yorker’s Web site. You wouldn’t think this was
banditry at all. You would find it unexceptionable._

I would argue that the latter seems unexceptional because it is qualitatively
different than the former.

If I pick up an essay from the _New Yorker_ and print it in a book that I then
sell, I am depriving the _New Yorker_ of revenue, because now there is a way
to get it that doesn't involve paying the rights-holder (the _New Yorker_ ).
This -- taking money out of the hands of the people who own the content to put
it in my own -- is what copyright is designed to stop.

If I link to an essay on the _New Yorker 's_ web site from my own web site, I
am _not_ depriving them of revenue, because you can only read it by following
the link, and the New Yorker is free to put up any financial barriers --
paywalls, ads, etc. -- between you and the endpoint of the link that they
wish. So they're not losing the opportunity to sell you the content; I'm not
taking money out of their hands. And maybe my endorsement that there's good
stuff to be found behind the paywall will be the factor that convinces you to
pay up.

Or, alternately, they can decide to forgo the money they'd make by forcing you
to subscribe in the hopes that they can make more money by showing ads against
the content instead. But the crucial point is that it is _their_ decision, not
mine. Whereas if I put the essay in a printed book, and then sold it, I am
making the decision _for_ them.

Where all this breaks down, of course, is in cases where I, the linker,
reprint large portions (or all) of the article on my own site in addition to
just providing a link. In that case, yes, I am depriving you of revenue,
because the reader no longer has to click through to get the meat of the
story. But traditional copyright law covers this scenario too -- I don't have
the right to do that. All I'm allowed to do by the doctrine of fair use
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use))
is reprint a small snippet. If I put up the whole thing, I'm violating your
copyright and you can and should come at me with guns blazing.

(I wrote a bit more about this distinction between what I call "ethical" and
"unethical" aggregation here: [http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2012/05/ethical-
aggregation-its-si...](http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2012/05/ethical-aggregation-
its-simple/))

~~~
spott
Later on in the article, the purpose of copyright is further discussed,
specifically the "moral" side of copyright.

For example: "Samuel Beckett’s restrictions on the staging of his plays is a
well-known example of the exercise of copyright as a moral right." and
"...although the buyer of a work of art may destroy it, he or she cannot
deface or otherwise alter it." as well as the inability to copy or publish out
of print books. None one of these is referring to the money making side of
copyright, but rather to the "moral" side that you own your creation
completely, and others only get to "consume" it.

~~~
galaxyLogic
I don't understand why you couldn't "deface" it. That is not the same thing as
copying at all. Is that really part of the copyright law?

~~~
ecdavis
[http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106](http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106)

It's under 106Aa3, I believe.

Pretty interesting stuff which I wasn't aware of.

EDIT: Note that the rights cannot be transferred, but can be waived. So if
you're buying visual art with the intention of defacing it then you can ask
the artist to sign a waiver form as a condition of the sale. Personally, I
think this is reasonable.

~~~
galaxyLogic
It's kind of a weird law, as if that kind of thing used to happen frequently
to artists. I think there should be another law for that. Ah, more laws :-)

------
marincounty
"In the case of many books and photographs, the rights holders are unknown; in
other cases, it’s expensive to track down the heirs or the legatees or the
firms, possibly no longer in existence, to whom the copyright belongs."

There's people who take advantage of this. I've seen more than a few people
claiming they own the copyright, while when asked to provide proof they never
respond. Ebay is loaded with people who are falsely claiming copyright
protection. Ebay seems to take the stand, "Well this dude was the first one to
scan it to PDF, he must own the copyright?"

------
teddyh
I thought this would be a link to the classic 1993 Wired Magazine article “
_Copywrong_ ”¹.

①
[http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/1.03/1.3_stallman.cop...](http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/1.03/1.3_stallman.copyright.html)

------
efaref
> “address” (which you can’t G.P.S.)

You very much can GPS an internet address:

[http://www.geoiptool.com/en/?ip=www.newyorker.com](http://www.geoiptool.com/en/?ip=www.newyorker.com)

------
dghf
And using the label "Silicon Valley" to refer to businesses that are
antagonistic to strong copyright? Companies like Adobe? Apple? Electronic
Arts? _Oracle?_

------
mynegation
I do not think that new image is a copy of an old one. Look at the flow of
hair - totally different, and unlikely to be photoshopped from one to another.
It is way easier to take another picture of the back of Rod Stewart's head and
my guess would be - this is what was done. The picture and style is obviously
a nostalgic reference to an old album cover art, but the picture is most
likely _new_, not a copy or derivative.

I would say that Rod Stewart may get his hair photographed as many tmes as he
damn pleases and case does not really have merit (IANAL etc etc).

~~~
pessimizer
The photographer isn't claiming that the new image is a photoshopped copy of
the old one.

~~~
DanTheManPR
Is the photographer claiming ownership of the concept of "the back of Rod
Stewart's head"?

~~~
pessimizer
Yes.

