The Day We Meet (copyright law/adaptation/dog)
The Day We Meet (copyright law/adaptation/dog)
Li Dongtao
Description: in case of adaptation, the derivative work must be different enough from the original to be considered a “new work”
The Facts
I dream of the day we meet
You tell me that your dream is complete with me.1
This is a case about “MEET”.
The plaintiff is a pet hospital.
The defendant is a .com company operating an online marriage business.
A dog has a bone in his mouth, normal.
How about a key?
In 2009, there was a photo on the plaintiff’s homepage, a bone in the mouth of a lovely dog, with the caption: A secret for your health.
In 2010, the plaintiff found this photo on the defendant’s website, the same dog, but the bone was adapted into a key, with the caption: Meet a lover in the sun. LDT
The plaintiff sued the defendant for copyright infringement.
The defendant argued that the copyright infringement was not established because it was a different expression for a different service.
Analysis
The copyright infringement is established.
In simpler terms, copyright is the right to copy. And, “COPY” is not limited to the domain of same services.
The plaintiff is the copyright owner of the photo A secret for your health.
Without the plaintiff’s permission, the defendant couldn’t use this photo for designing a new ad.
Though the photo was adapted, but the result is the copy of the important part of the original photo, the lovely dog.
In short, meet the defendant, no dream, only infringement.
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[1] I Dream of the Day We Meet POEM by Anna Moon at www.poetry.com/poem/74173/i-dream-of-the-day-we-meet
