It is common in reality for photographers to take pictures of the same scene. Therefore, are similar photos taken on the same subject considered copyright infringement?
According to current provisions of Vietnamese law, photographic works are one of the types of protected works (in Clause 1, Article 14 of the Intellectual Property Law). Photographic works are protected under the following conditions:
- Created directly by the author using his or her intellectual labor without copying from the works of others (in Clause 3, Article 14 of the Intellectual Property Law).
- Authors and copyright owners are Vietnamese organizations and individuals; Foreign organizations and individuals whose works are published for the first time in Vietnam but have not been published in any other country or are published simultaneously in Vietnam within thirty days from the date of the work that is published for the first time in another country; Foreign organizations and individuals whose works are protected in Vietnam under international copyright treaties to which the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a member.
In addition, according to Clause 1, Article 6 of the Intellectual Property Law: “Copyright arises from the moment the work is created and expressed in a certain material form, regardless of content or quality, form, medium, language, published or unpublished, registered or unregistered.” From the above regulations, it can be seen that copyright only protects the form of expression of the work, not the content of the work (or the ideas conveyed in the work). Therefore, if different authors take photos of the same object but have a separate form of expression of the work, independent of other authors, those photographic works are completely protected by copyright.
Specifically, taking photos of the same object but different authors express their creativity through camera angles, methods, photography techniques, and the overall idea of the work, creating different for the viewer different feelings. Although the two works capture the same subject, there is no significant similarity in expression, and if the viewer can easily distinguish the two works, both works are protected by copyright.
For the above reasons, it can be affirmed that photographic works using the same subject by different authors are not considered copyright infringement.
Above is the article “Are photographic works with the same subject matter considered copyright infringement?“. We hope this article is useful to you.
