The plaintiff alleged copyright infringement in respect of his paintings of well known views of London landmarks. He sought an interlocutory injunction.
Held: Reproduction in a material form of a substantial part of a work in which copyright exists is determined by applying the test of substantial use of the features of the applicant’s work in which copyright subsists. Whitford J said: ‘When one is considering a view of a very well known subject like the Houses of Parliament with Westminster Bridge and part of the Embankment in the foreground, the features in which copyright is going to subsist are very often the choice of viewpoint, the exact balance of foreground features or features in the middle ground and features in the far ground, the figures which are introduced, possibly in the case of a river scene the craft may be on the river and so forth. It is in choices of this character that the person producing the artistic work makes his original contribution.’
Whitford J said: ‘The question at the end of the day is whether the defendant has, in producing the alleged infringement, made a substantial use of those features of the plaintiff’s work in which copyright subsists.’
Judges:
Whitford J
Citations:
[1977] FSR 557
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Temple Island Collections Ltd v New English Teas Ltd and Another PCC 12-Jan-2012
The claimant asserted infringement of their copyright in a photograph. It showed the Houses of Parliament in black and white with a London bus in red. The original action had been settled and the proposed image withdrawn as a copy. The defendants . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Intellectual Property
Updated: 06 May 2022; Ref: scu.535639