That’s utterly ridiculous. I hope no one comes along and claims this is the logical extension of copyright protection, because it isn’t. Copyright protects the right of the creator of visual or written material to control its distribution — note, the CREATOR of the MATERIAL, not the creator of the thing depicted. Next the Greeks and Italians will organize a joint suit to injunct Western use of the alphabet without permission.
There is not a legal leg to stand on here — Ford is just trying to protect its ability to make money off of advertising deals to produce calendars and the like commercially. But there’s no “right” at stake here, legal or theoretical, just their baseless desire to get paid every time someone shows a picture of a car somewhere. They’re shooting themselves in the foot the while, since pictures of cars created by people who love the cars for the purpose of showing how much they love the cars are GOOD ADVERTISING, not harm to the image. It’s bizarro world indeed.
That’s utterly ridiculous. I hope no one comes along and claims this is the logical extension of copyright protection, because it isn’t. Copyright protects the right of the creator of visual or written material to control its distribution — note, the CREATOR of the MATERIAL, not the creator of the thing depicted. Next the Greeks and Italians will organize a joint suit to injunct Western use of the alphabet without permission.
There is not a legal leg to stand on here — Ford is just trying to protect its ability to make money off of advertising deals to produce calendars and the like commercially. But there’s no “right” at stake here, legal or theoretical, just their baseless desire to get paid every time someone shows a picture of a car somewhere. They’re shooting themselves in the foot the while, since pictures of cars created by people who love the cars for the purpose of showing how much they love the cars are GOOD ADVERTISING, not harm to the image. It’s bizarro world indeed.
Ford back off that a few days later. Claimed it was a misunderstanding…
Interesting. That article you linked to won’t be published until tomorrow, apparently.
Ford conceeded
http://www.bmcforums.com/showthread.php?t=42820