Imitation is the highest form of flattery?

[JohnMichael]

Recap for clarification:

First image was image that John Michael took on his own camera of his own turntable and then posted to a forum for the purposes of whatever discussion was going on there. I don't care why he did it, other than he wanted to show some online friends his photo (whether it was a discussion about the turntable, the cartridge, or he wanted to show off his photo skills was immaterial). It was just a random nice photo that many of us post to discussions.

Second image a third COMMERCIAL party has taken that image and minimally altered it (i.e. cropped it a little, maybe straightened it and background blurred it). But it has not been altered in any way that anyone closely looking at the photo could call significantly altered to make the original image unrecognizable.

Because the second image was used by a party unknown to John Michael for commercial purposed without so much as a "do you mind" it would fall under copyright infringement.

Between my two initial posts all I ever suggested is that John Michael look into getting some sort of compensation for the use of the image. The link I posted was a follow-up to my initial post suggesting that he do that and was merely meant to demonstrate that he had a possible legal leg to stand on.

Him posting the images / links here or any other discussion is not the issue I was pointing out. The fact that nobody paid him to take his photo and use it their advertisement was something he could look into still getting paid for.

I have no idea what he might get out of it if successful. If it's just a local retailer that used it on their website maybe not much. If it's the actual manufacturer, probably a reasonable compensation is in order from either them or their ad agency (or both).

Might not be worth the fuss and bother of him pursuing it. But looking into it and maybe at least getting a "sorry" from the third party might be nice . It's entirely possible whoever put together the ad didn't realize they were crossing a copyright line (or maybe didn't care figuring nobody would notice).

To restate the obvious here. I was in no way saying that his post here was inappropriate.

Thanks for the clarification. I also wanted to welcome you to AudioReview.

[Ryissa]

Thanks for the clarification. I also wanted to welcome you to AudioReview.

Thanks for the welcome.

I checked into the name that slapped their copyright across your photo (nice of them, eh!). Looks like they are based in Hong Kong which may be problematic in terms of getting anything out of them even apology wise.

I'd be tempted to contact the marketing arm of Audio-Technica nearest you and send them both images and the link to the thread where you posted your original photo. Mention that you realize that Dzone is only their distributer, but that you weren't sure who to contact about the matter. Outline basically what you said here and ask them to get Dzone to take the image down or contact you about compensating you for the photo as you are pretty sure Audio-Technica doesn't support copyright infringement in advertisements promoting their products. (A large company like Audio-Technica is going to want to protect it's image and how it's promoted, even by third parties).

If your like me, it's more the principle of the thing versus expecting to make money out of the deal.

And with that commentary I shall go back to my hum drum life where (to the best of my knowledge) nobody likes my photos enough other than to make them into their profile photos on occasion.

[JoeE SP9]

I'm inclined to listen to Ryissa's suggestions. You may not get any thing from the effort. However, were it me I'd still give it a shot.