Apple sued over alleged misuse of photo in MacBook Pro promotion
Mikey CampbellPhotographer Sabine Liewald's "Eye Closeup" as seen on Apple's MacBook Pro with Retina display.
A Swiss photographer has filed suit against Apple for allegedly using an incorrectly licensed image to promote the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, with the artist asking for damages plus associated profits.
The claim asserted by Sabine Liewald says that Apple purchased rights to use the image, titled "Eye Closeup," for "layout purposes only," but went on to display the photograph in a number of commercial applications.
As noted by CNET, Apple used the photograph to show off the company's 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display when the product was announced in June.
According to the claim, Apple obtained a high-resolution file of "Eye Closeup" for what is known as "comping," or layout, purposes. Usually, comping images are provided at low-resolution and are watermarked to dissuade their use in ads or marketing without receiving permission to do so from content owners.
Although the photograph is not considered a "United States work" by the Copyright Act, Liewald says the image is covered by copyright law and is also "protected as under the Byrne Convention as a non-United States work."
Liewald asserts that by "commercially exploiting" the image, Apple caused statutory damages while "obtaining significant economic gains," suggesting the photograph is to be credited for at least some part of the MacBook Pro's success.
The suit was filed on Wednesday with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and asks for damages of each infringing use of the "Eye Closeup" photograph, profits associated with its use and incurred legal fees.
Charles Martin
William Gallagher
Andrew Orr
Malcolm Owen
Christine McKee
Chip Loder
121 Comments
Let's go back and look at another case like this: the iPad's default Springboard image.
The guy responsible for it didn't know Apple had used it until a friend told him, right? And what did he do afterward? He was honored and probably saw a surge in popularity/publicity of his other photos.
That's how you take a situation like this.
Apple likes to knit pick.. Why can't people outside the corporation?
There were also the two lawsuits by Louis Psihoyos over the similarity of early Apple TV promotional ads to his "1000 TVs" image.
What I don't understand is that if they used the "Comping" image of the photography, then how did it become hi-res enough for print and HDTV ads? How did they obtain the hi-resolution image without paying for a license? It sounds like this guy got his $1.59 worth of royalties from a stock photo web site and now wants to milk Apple for millions.
It's _nit_ pick. I'm outside the corporation, so I assume that's what you mean? So did someone buy the computer specifically because the eye picture was in the ads? Just curious, how do you determine damages? For that matter, I find that the eye is sort of scary looking, so maybe that's what kept me from buying the Mac Pro Retina? That could have dissuaded others as well, so maybe he owes Apple damages now... Or maybe he could have just asked them for the going rate for using an image instead of being a lawsuit happy wanker, especially considering that they clearly DID license it in the first place and most likely missed the fine print saying it was layout only?