On 5/21/06, Peter Mackay peter.mackay@bigpond.com wrote:
Nor is having the idea for a particular photograph enough to give you copyright over an image taken by somebody else. I don't know about "setting the settings" - you may have some point here - but on examining this image it doesn't seem to have been taken in any particularly challenging lighting or other conditions. Depth of field, the "flat" lighting of an overcast day
- it all looks to me like the camera was set on automatic and the
autofocus picked out the subject.
It looks to me unremarkable in every way. There must be a million happy snaps out there taken in the same location all looking much the same.
If it's so unremarkable and so uncreative, isn't the whole question of copyright totally moot? Can you claim copyright over the way you parked your car? Over the way you filled in a cheque? Over your choice of TV watching on a given night? Such a bad photo as that one hardly seems to fulfil any criteria for creativity - the person aimed in roughly the right direction and pressed a button.
Point and shoot? That's about all that anyone does with a digital camera
nowadays.
Most people - but not all.
Steve