4 ms·

Photography is a copyrightable art, but don't say that most of the work is actually done by a machine. Or even by the engineer who built the machine. You could

Photography is a copyrightable art, but don't say that most of the work is actually done by a machine. Or even by the engineer who built the machine. You could argue that the photographer just presses a button and, perhaps, airbrushes it later in photoshop, and yet that's art.

kderbyma 8mo ago
Tell me you cant take good photos without telling me you cant take good photos. Photographers have the skill of colour, framing, perspective, and timing.... and if its nature, they also have to carry heavy bags of camera gear along with their hiking gear and bear spray etc and go out and then cpture photos....national geographic literally made its career off photos.....do you think about what orher weird takes you may have and never notice how wrong they are?
IsTom 8mo ago
It's not copyrightable automatically, you have to argue that you did have an artistic input (e.g. composition). Typically nobody bothers to argue against copyrightability of a photo, but there's been a few cases.
- MostlyStable 8mo ago
  Do you know of any sources that talk about this? I tried to do a bit of searching and the closest I found was the .gov site [0] that did make a similar-ish claim, but was vague enough (at least to me, a non-lawyer), that it doesn't seem to rule out that every photo taken by an individual is copywriteable >First, copyright protects original works of authorship, including original photographs. A work is original if it is independently created and is sufficiently creative. Creativity in photography can be found in a variety of ways and reflect the photographer’s artistic choices like the angle and position of subject(s) in the photograph, lighting, and timing. I find it hard to imagine a photo taken by someone where it couldn't be argued that those elements exist. I guess the photographer would have to explicitly tell the court something like "no, I put no thought into it whatsoever, the camera was hanging off my bag and the shutter button was pressed accidentally". Like, if a human purposefully took a photo, then they have made choices about location, subject, etc. which have some element of "creativity" to them. [0] https://www.copyright.gov/engage/photographers/ https://www.copyright.gov/engage/photographers/
  - IsTom 8mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannion_v._Coors_Brewing_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannion_v._Coors_Brewing_Co. I remember there being a somewhat similar case in (I think?) Netherlands a few years ago, but currently can't find it.
    - card_zero 8mo ago
      There's the monkey selfie incident.
    - the-wouter 8mo ago
      I know this isn't the case you are referring to, but I am pretty sure cases like this exist more often. This is one of such cases I have in my notes: https://deeplink.rechtspraak.nl/uitspraak?id=ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2026:178 https://deeplink.rechtspraak.nl/uitspraak?id=ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2... It's a simple and quite recent Dutch case (feel free to use AI to translate it :p), where the courts basically said that the plaintiff did not sufficiently motivate why their photo would be copyrighted, especially in light of very similar photos having been made by other people (4.5).
- nwellnhof 8mo ago
  Depends on the jurisdiction. In Germany, practically every photo is copyrightable.

kderbyma 8mo ago

Tell me you cant take good photos without telling me you cant take good photos. Photographers have the skill of colour, framing, perspective, and timing.... and if its nature, they also have to carry heavy bags of camera gear along with their hiking gear and bear spray etc and go out and then cpture photos....national geographic literally made its career off photos.....do you think about what orher weird takes you may have and never notice how wrong they are?

IsTom 8mo ago

It's not copyrightable automatically, you have to argue that you did have an artistic input (e.g. composition). Typically nobody bothers to argue against copyrightability of a photo, but there's been a few cases.

MostlyStable 8mo ago
Do you know of any sources that talk about this? I tried to do a bit of searching and the closest I found was the .gov site [0] that did make a similar-ish claim, but was vague enough (at least to me, a non-lawyer), that it doesn't seem to rule out that every photo taken by an individual is copywriteable >First, copyright protects original works of authorship, including original photographs. A work is original if it is independently created and is sufficiently creative. Creativity in photography can be found in a variety of ways and reflect the photographer’s artistic choices like the angle and position of subject(s) in the photograph, lighting, and timing. I find it hard to imagine a photo taken by someone where it couldn't be argued that those elements exist. I guess the photographer would have to explicitly tell the court something like "no, I put no thought into it whatsoever, the camera was hanging off my bag and the shutter button was pressed accidentally". Like, if a human purposefully took a photo, then they have made choices about location, subject, etc. which have some element of "creativity" to them. [0] https://www.copyright.gov/engage/photographers/ https://www.copyright.gov/engage/photographers/
- IsTom 8mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannion_v._Coors_Brewing_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannion_v._Coors_Brewing_Co. I remember there being a somewhat similar case in (I think?) Netherlands a few years ago, but currently can't find it.
  - card_zero 8mo ago
    There's the monkey selfie incident.
  - the-wouter 8mo ago
    I know this isn't the case you are referring to, but I am pretty sure cases like this exist more often. This is one of such cases I have in my notes: https://deeplink.rechtspraak.nl/uitspraak?id=ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2026:178 https://deeplink.rechtspraak.nl/uitspraak?id=ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2... It's a simple and quite recent Dutch case (feel free to use AI to translate it :p), where the courts basically said that the plaintiff did not sufficiently motivate why their photo would be copyrighted, especially in light of very similar photos having been made by other people (4.5).
nwellnhof 8mo ago
Depends on the jurisdiction. In Germany, practically every photo is copyrightable.