The two pictures are nowhere near being exact copies - and it is not beyond coincidence that two photographers with similar interests/customers could arrive at vaguely similar efforts; although it is equally possible that one has been inspired by “prior art”. You would alas be unable, in my opinion, to convince a Court that any infringement of you copyright has taken place. In a simple example - if I take a photo of a London bus that must not ban all others from also submitting pictures of a London bus, even if in the same location, unless the viewpoint has been exactly duplicated, and it is the SAME bus. And another example - most photographic magazines show examples of readers’ work - does that ban me from going to the same location and taking a similar picture; I don’t think it does. Now if I got hold of the other persons picture file to pass it off as my own - THAT would be a copyright infringement, or even a criminal offence of theft possibly. Sorry Jan, you did ask ! dan (the artiste formerly known as Dan Mitchell) > On 1 Apr 2015, at 12:00, photoforum-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. copying (Jan Faul) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2015 12:32:29 -0400 > From: Jan Faul <jan@xxxxxxxxxxx> > > I have a question for the group - > > Yesterday I opened a piece of email from Artnet and was disturbed to see somebody selling a piece of art at auction. The disturbing part is that it is very similar to a piece of mine. The questions are, is it similar or am I full of it, and if the former, what should I do besides complain (ArtNet has retreated into silence). > > Mine is here: http://janfaul.com/border_galleries/nature/ <http://janfaul.com/border_galleries/nature/> - it is Green Trees (now named Hansel & Gretel) > > And the copy is here: https://www.artnet.com/auctions/artists/ruud-van-empel/theatre-4?utm_campaign=artnetnews&utm_source=033015daily&utm_medium=email > > Any comments? >
