Case Study #3: Gap Steal?

1. In this case study, a possible violation of copyright law could be perceived because Baby Gap used an image found online and used it, without permission, to make a profit. This would be considered a violation of Copyright Law Section 106(3), which states that "To distribute copies...of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending..." is the exclusive right of the owner; in this case, the photographer. The man who took the original picture of the car and put it up on Flickr did NOT give anyone permission to use it.

2. The pro for the photographer was receiving recognition for his good picture. However, the con associated with putting that picture online was the risk of someone using it for their own profit. The pro for Baby Gap was an adorable baby onsie of which they would make a profit, but the con was that the original photographer (the owner of the image) would find out and take them to court.

3. I have concluded that from a business perspective there is a copyright violation in this case. The violation is in reference to the Copyright Law Section 106(3), which implies that the photographer of an image has fill ownership to his or her photos, and exclusive rights to make a profit from it. However in this situation, Baby Gap did not seek permission to use the image, and basically stole the photo off the internet in order to make a profit.

4. In an educational setting, this situation may look like this: an art teacher wants to use an image found online to teach his or her students how to modify an image using Photoshop. In that case, this action is completely covered by the Fair Use Doctrine. Because the image is being used to teach a concept and benefit the students (and without making a profit), then the teacher has a fair right to use the image. However, if the image was used by the school to make a profit, then that would be a different story because of Section 107 of the Copyright Act.

5. My automatic response to this case study is that Baby Gap had no right to the photo. I sympathize with the photographer, because that photo was his artwork! It was completely unfair for Baby Gap to profit off this artist's work, especially without the photographer's knowledge.