I publish software as software developer, publish music as a musician, and 'copy' as photographer... publishing rights are on the top of my mind every time something of mine goes live.
The writer tries to make a valid comparison between taking a picture, and taking an already created already popular picture and modifying it. There are a lot of variables involved process of taking a previously published picture and copying it, the writer want us to believe, the variables make it original. If the two art forms were comparable you could take that famous, extraordinary picture of Miles again, just like I could recreate that pixelated pic of the picture of Miles again. There are many problems with this: one, Miles is dead, two, the best photographer could not catch that moment at that time because one thing about photography is every shot is one in a billion trillion, no two shots are the same. Other problems with this comparison go on and on.
If you wanted to extend that metaphor to music, 'there are only 88 keys on piano. Every song written is copying some sampling of those 88 keys. No need for music composition copyright anymore.' Obviously, this is not the case. Yet, sampling a segment from a song to use in your song is usually obvious to the listener and is commonly and 'easily' fought in court. photography is not copying and if you think it is, I will hand you my camera, and ask you to take that picture again.
Say what you will about the art institute, but they disagree. "You may not reproduce the Art Institute of Chicago’s logo or building image, which are also trademarks, without an express license from the Art Institute of Chicago."
The "moment in time" argument is clearly weak when you compare it to copying from your neighbor's physics final. "No one could copy Feynman's sophomore year final exam! He's dead. It was a performance such as the world will never see again."
I agree with you, photography is art. There is a huge amount of talent luck and preparation required to get that shot. I'm just saying your defense of photography seems weak. It's pretty trivial to create derivative work with photography (hence the releases and licenses).
The reason we're never "forced" to agree, in a math problem sense, is the line between original and derivative is so subjective. A photo of a person is derivative. A photo of a crowd is unique. A photo of this building is a trademark violation, no matter how artfully done. The most pedestrian photo of the building across the street is fine.
I agree with you on this. I think the article would have been much better if he had focused on the fact that it wasn't just taking the original image directly and modifying it but making a brand new image based on the original. The pixalated image seems to have been hand drawn. I would like to know if taking an image like the one of Miles Davis and making a bust of it would be considered copyright infringment? If that is then the pixalated image is also infringment, if it isn't I don't see why the pixaleted image would also not be infringement. Is it the medium change that is the difference?
I find this stuff confusing because then every time someone remakes that famous image of Marilyn Monroe with a look alike they are infringing.
But just as you could recreate that (pixel art) image yourself, there's nothing stopping you from coming up with an already-created song yourself: the necessary information to create that (a piano, say) isn't dead like Miles Davis. Whether something can be re-created manually or not is not really a sane measure of creativity in the work.
The writer tries to make a valid comparison between taking a picture, and taking an already created already popular picture and modifying it. There are a lot of variables involved process of taking a previously published picture and copying it, the writer want us to believe, the variables make it original. If the two art forms were comparable you could take that famous, extraordinary picture of Miles again, just like I could recreate that pixelated pic of the picture of Miles again. There are many problems with this: one, Miles is dead, two, the best photographer could not catch that moment at that time because one thing about photography is every shot is one in a billion trillion, no two shots are the same. Other problems with this comparison go on and on.
If you wanted to extend that metaphor to music, 'there are only 88 keys on piano. Every song written is copying some sampling of those 88 keys. No need for music composition copyright anymore.' Obviously, this is not the case. Yet, sampling a segment from a song to use in your song is usually obvious to the listener and is commonly and 'easily' fought in court. photography is not copying and if you think it is, I will hand you my camera, and ask you to take that picture again.