photography and the law case study

Copyright law is not clear-cut when it comes to protecting photographs. Furthermore, when it comes to digitally enhancing or altering photographs, photographers need to be aware of the risks of copying significant elements of other images. The ‘Red Bus’ case, decided last year in the English Patents County Court, illustrates the difficulties businesses can face when using “photoshopped” images. The Red Bus case concerned images of a London bus crossing Westminster Bridge in front of the Houses ofParliment.

The image on the top was taken by the ‘Temple Island Collection Limited’ in 2005 in London. The bottom image was taken years later in 2012 by the ‘New English Teas’ Company in the same place with what looks like the same red bus presented in the first image. Though the angles are different in each photo, some say they are basically the same photo and deserve copyright sue. ‘Temple Island Collection Limited’ sued ‘New English Teas’ for copyright in 2018. Justice Birss had judgement in favor of Mr. Fiedler (Temple Island Collection Limited), because he found that Mr. Houghton (New English Teas) copied substantial parts of Mr. Fiedler’s photo. Justice Briss stated that, “‘there were obvious similarities between the two images. Such as the same buildings in black and white with a bright red bus driving from right to left, and the blank white sky. These similarities were due to the fact that Mr. Houghton saw Mr. Fielder’s work before creating his own image, had copied it, and had copied too much of it.’” With this, Mr. Fiedler won the “Red Bus” case for copyright on Mr. Houghton. My opinion on this is that ‘New English Teas’ did take a very similar photo to ‘Temple Island Collection Limited’, and I can see why Mr. Fiedler would be upset that his work was “copied”. I do think that Mr. Houghton looked at the original photo and went out to recreate it or take a similar photo. But photography is all about inspiration. Without inspiration from other photographers and artists, people’s imagination would go bland. I think Mr. Fielder’s photo was influencing Mr. Houghton’s photo. But it was too similar that it represented copyright.