Imitation is the highest form of flattery?

[Feanor]

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.
...

So finally I see you're point Ryissa -- my apology to you and to JohnMichael for that matter.

Frankly I don't use a turntable anymore, (have scarcely done so in the last 15 years), so I didn't take the time to read and digest JM's original post or to properly take his meaning. That is, I mistakenly thought he was just talking about is TT and cartridge.

I dare say that people do this sort of nefarious copying all the time. I note that the second, ad photo says "copyright @ Dzone HK LTD"; I guess he could go after them if wanted to. I dare say they would deny their evident misdeed.