About two weeks ago I got a call from Mark Lamster, a columnist for the LA Times. He was investigating this article, concerning a very publicized question of photography copyright infringement between David Burdeny and Sze Tsung Leong.

Quite frankly, I think the entire situation is rather silly. One is accusing the other of imitation because his images are nearly identical (which I completely disagree with anyway). I left a comment on the original article with my thoughts on this – the fact, succintly, that nobody that photographs tourist attractions and famous places really has an ability to claim copyright with the thousands upon thousands of extremely similar images.

I was actually rather glad to see a journalist doing his homework. If you read his article, there’s tons of evidence of plenty more research time. The reason I say this is that a while back a local news channel did their research on Wikipedia (which was wrong), then they announced it on air, and then it became “truth,” and the wikipedia page cited the radio station as an authority. In any case, I told him I was not affiliated with either (nor that I’ve ever met either, which is entirely true), and he said that my comments would be included with the article.

Have a look at the LA Times. The bit he quoted is included on the first page. My complete quote was this:

It’s slightly ridiculous that anybody is shocked by similar images. In this day and age, just about everything has been photographed by many different people in many similar ways. I completely agree that these are pretty standard tourist routes, and the natural composition of the scenes will cause people to take similar pictures. I don’t see the intent here, and the Cutting Wharf pair is pretty weak. This is why I avoid taking touristy pictures of monuments, landmarks, etc: people are hypersensitive.

Similarity does not imply imitation.

What do you think about it?