Re: Senior pics

On Tues. Apr. 8, Darren Donnelly <ddonnelly[_at_]scuacc.scu.edu> wrote:
>
> Are we moving too fast in assuming the photographer owns a
> copyright in the senior pictures? I think a pretty solid argument
> can be made that your typical senior picture does not embody enough
> originality to get copyright protection.
>
> ...
>
> Anyone know of cases involving photos and interpreting Feist? If senior
> pictures do evidence sufficient originality (intellectual production,
> thought and conception), and the originality requirement is a substantive
> one, what photos do not?

In Jeweler's Circular Publishing Co. v. Keystone, 274 F. 932 (S.D.N.Y. 1921), Judge Learned Hand states that "no photograph, however simple, can be unaffected by the personal influence of the author, and no two will be absolutely alike" suggesting an answer to the question left open by Burrow-Giles as to the authorship of the "ordinary production of a photograph."

     Christine Haight Farley
     Associate in Law
     Columbia Law School
     farley[_at_]law.columbia.edu