Apple’s no stranger to lawsuits, but this one’s a bit bizarre: a New York photographer is suing Cupertino for using one of her copyrighted photos in an iPhone advertisement. But does she have a case?
The photographer is named Taea Thale, who took a photograph of the band members behind “She and Him”… a band that Apple featured in an advertisement last year for the iPhone 3GS.
During this ad, Thale’s photographs pops up after the iPhone model loads up the local concert finding iLike app. When iLike accesses She and Him’s concert page, Thale’s photograph is displayed on the screen for a few seconds.
According to Thale’s lawyers, this was unauthorized and illegal use of the image, as the photograph was only ever licensed to Merge Media for limited use in magazines and posters.
Even so, it seems like the real company Thale should be suing is iLike. I guess their pockets weren’t deep enough for Thale’s liking.
[via The Loop]
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
44 responses to “Apple Sued For Using Copyrighted Photo In An iPhone Ad”
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As much as I don’t like what she’s doing, she’s correct in suing Apple and not iLike. Â Apple is using it in an advertisement, iLike appears to only automatically link to related content, so if the content is out there to be linked to then they can’t really be faulted for that. Â
Edit, could you guys *please* do something about the spam bots???? Every single article on this site has spam postings in the comments.
I don’t agree. Apple was showing off the iLike app. Whatever came up was inconsequential to them as it could have been ANYTHING iLike served up. It would have to be proven that Apple CHOSE that picture willfully.
you mean if something illegal happens on accident, it’s not illegal?
You are probably right, BUT does Apple ever do anything not on purpose?
I was actually thinking about this after posting the above. Yeah, I think it had to be a choice of theirs, so I think they are probably culpable.
But if the photograph in question is licensed to be used for the app then thats a different story than if the photo was used for the concert venue then it still like shooting a Public bus passing by in a commercial. But still most ad companies would not allow that kind of thing to happen. You don’t know how many times I’ve had to put tape over company names in shooting for television epsisodes. Much of that tape going over Apple logos on computers for fear that Apple might take note and sue because they have an entire department designated for product placement. So reverse the situation. The Photo used to promote the band is holding an iPad…what would Apple do then?
She is doing just as Apple does allt he time. When someone threatens your copyright you sue them to prevent others from doing the same. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
I think its dumb. Â Free publicity on an Apple product…priceless
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Agreed.
lol
Actually she could be in the wrong suing Apple. They likely contacted iLike about including the app and in the agreement had the same clauses that said company is responsible for obtaing the rights to anything copyrighted used by the app. Additionally they have similar clauses regarding cover art for albums.
If Apple was told by these companies that they had gotten the appropriate permissions and they had not, it is not Apple at fault.
Seems like fair use to me, although it’s something for lawyers to work out the various legal ramifications. When the photo of the 2 people was used for the album cover, it is to be expected that the cover would be displayed on web sites, in ads, etc. Surely the photographer wouldn’t be charging She and Him every time they placed an ad that contained a photo of the album cover. When I design covers like this, I relinquish all rights to its use, because I don’t want to limit my client’s ability to promote his own album. To do otherwise is to cause a great deal of upset to my client. Maybe this is just a sneaky way of getting PR and advertising for the album. It will definitely get the group in front of lots of people.
trying to get a piece of that Apple pie.
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it’s the picture in the iLike app that is in cause, not the album art
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The first thing you do is point out the unlicensed usage and ask for a fee.Â
If they refuse, then you sue. I’ll bet the photographer skipped the first step on the advice of a weasely lawyer.
True, but the normal way to handle copyright infringement such as this is to send a cease and desist note first at least. They might have done that though, we don’t know.
Depends really…
I don’t know if this applies to the US but I am pretty sure most of Europe, if you kill someone by accident the punishment is far from as strict as if you had intentionally done so :p
See lucascott’s comment below, think he is on the right track.
As lucascott already said Apple probably asked permission to use the app and there is likely a contract somewhere say that the owner of the app is responsible for all contents and so on…
Either way, in my opinion, things such as these should be simply denied simply because of the age of the ad :p they didn’t bother until now…
Look up “Mens Rea”. In some cases if something happens as an Accident it’s not a Criminal Offense.
In this case she’s likely filling a Civil Lawsuit which means a payout.