blog




  • Essay / The Harney Vs. Sony Pictures Television Inc. Court Case: The Trial Verdict and the Case for Abuse of Copyright Law

    Facts: In April 2007, photographer Donald Harney took a photo of what appeared being a father and daughter at an event. Almost a year later, in 2008, the couple in question was involved in a kidnapping case and the girl was kidnapped by her father. The story quickly became a media sensation, and given that it was a photo of both subjects, Harney's image was used in media coverage of the kidnapping, for which Harney received licensing fees by several information networks. A television series was soon made to adapt the story of the kidnapping. Sony Pictures Television Inc. imitated the photograph taken by Donald Harney in his television film for use as a prop, although details of Sony's version were changed in several ways, namely the use of an actor and a child actress. , the orientation of the young girl's hands and the papers held in the hand of the father figure. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Sony's image appears 42 seconds into the 90-minute film, depicted as a wanted poster and other similar objects. Additionally, he appeared in 22 commercials on the program for less than a second each. Harney, having not been contacted by Sony for permission to recreate a similar image, subsequently filed a lawsuit, alleging that Sony's use of his photograph without permission was a violation of the Federal Copyright Act. copyright. Sony fought the charges, arguing that no reasonable jury would view their image as blatant theft of Harney's work. Issue or Questions: The issue in this particular case is whether or not a party's recreation of an image may attempt to reproduce it in such a blatant manner that the work thereby constitutes theft of the artist's original content. Specifically, it addresses Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution: the patent and copyright clause. Ruling or Judgment: The First Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals ruled that no "substantial similarity" could be found between Sony Television Pictures' image and the photograph originally taken by Donald Harney, ruling in favor of Sony. The ruling dissected the notion of “substantial similarity,” a term used to determine whether or not an image was essentially stolen and the extent to which it was recreated. Since the image originally created by Harney was used as a wanted poster, Harney argued that the similarity of Sony's image (recreated with the actors playing the characters in that version) was an implicit attempt to copy Harney's own image. The jury agreed that many key features of the image were similar, including clothing, age/appearance and the pose in which the couple was captured. There were, however, many smaller details that were considered different, including the background of the image being different, the contents of the male character's hand being unreadable in the Sony image, and many others features that were considered more abundant than the things they shared in common. These images they shared were further deemed “not protected by copyright”. The court recognized that it is permissible to imitate the non-copyrighted elements of a copyrighted work and that if two works share the same non-copyrighted elements , then there is no.