{"id":324120,"date":"2010-02-15T15:42:52","date_gmt":"2010-02-15T20:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20100215\/0129328161.shtml"},"modified":"2010-02-15T15:42:52","modified_gmt":"2010-02-15T20:42:52","slug":"beyonces-bikini-infringing-on-copyrights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/324120","title":{"rendered":"Beyonce&#8217;s Bikini Infringing On Copyrights?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/CopyrightLaw\/statuses\/9036585852\" >Michael Scott<\/a> points us to a story over at IPKat about how <a href=\"http:\/\/ipkitten.blogspot.com\/2010\/02\/friday-frivolity-beyonces-pirated.html\" >singer Beyonce (or, rather, her label, Sony) is in trouble in Germany for infringing on the copyright of a designer<\/a> due to a bikini she wore in a video.  Seriously.  In the US, we (for the time being, at least) still don&#8217;t allow copyrights on clothing design, but apparently in Germany they feel differently about that sort of thing.  Still, there are two disturbing aspects to this case.  First, after ruling that the bikini infringed, the judge put an injunction on the entire video in Germany, though, since we&#8217;re not in Germany, here it is:<br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<object width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/Wh2QF5OybcE&#038;rel=0&#038;color1=0xb1b1b1&#038;color2=0xcfcfcf&#038;hl=de_DE&#038;feature=player_embedded&#038;fs=1\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/Wh2QF5OybcE&#038;rel=0&#038;color1=0xb1b1b1&#038;color2=0xcfcfcf&#038;hl=de_DE&#038;feature=player_embedded&#038;fs=1\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowScriptAccess=\"always\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><\/embed><\/object><br \/>\n<\/center><br \/>\nBut what&#8217;s more troubling is the fact that the two bikinis really are not the same.  Remember, copyright is supposed to be about the specific <i>expression<\/i> and not the idea.  But that doesn&#8217;t seem to be the case here.  The two bikinis are obvious inspired by similar ideas &#8212; or one was inspired by the other &#8212; but the actual <i>expressions<\/i> of those ideas are quite different:<br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4045\/4359035444_d938374918.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n<\/center><br \/>\nFinally, even if the bikini is infringing, shouldn&#8217;t the problem be with whoever made the infringing bikini, not who wore it (or who paid for the video including someone wearing it)?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20100215\/0129328161.shtml\">Permalink<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20100215\/0129328161.shtml#comments\">Comments<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/article.php?sid=20100215\/0129328161&#038;op=sharethis\">Email This Story<\/a><br \/>\n <br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/click.phdo?s=271a51f912ac7676a56d3baa7f8d4f64&#038;p=1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" style=\"border: 0;\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/img.phdo?s=271a51f912ac7676a56d3baa7f8d4f64&#038;p=1\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" height=\"0\" width=\"0\" border=\"0\" style=\"display:none\" src=\"http:\/\/a.rfihub.com\/eus.gif?eui=2225\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.techdirt.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?a=MEUwxAwbYWU:jrex_rVSB0A:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?i=MEUwxAwbYWU:jrex_rVSB0A:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.techdirt.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?a=MEUwxAwbYWU:jrex_rVSB0A:c-S6u7MTCTE\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?d=c-S6u7MTCTE\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/techdirt\/feed\/~4\/MEUwxAwbYWU\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Scott points us to a story over at IPKat about how singer Beyonce (or, rather, her label, Sony) is in trouble in Germany for infringing on the copyright of a designer due to a bikini she wore in a video. Seriously. In the US, we (for the time being, at least) still don&#8217;t allow [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-324120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}