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What creative person hasn't "reappropriated" something before? Some fancy facade, or a fascinating composition? Whole paintings even - that was how young painters used to learn the art of art, sheer copying. Now someone is being sued for it, by the copying of various poses in photography. One photographer pitted against another.
Artist Janine “Jah Jah” Gordon has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against photographer Ryan McGinley for copyright infringement, arguing that 150 of McGinley’s photographs, including several used in an ad campaign for Levi’s, a co-defendant in the suit, are “substantially based” on Gordon’s original work.
It has to be pointed out that it wasn't a very subtle way of using what might have been his inspiration. Nor was the genesis in the photos acknowledged which probably set off Jah Jah's fuse. Still, I am uncertain whether the plaintiff would win this legal battle. Inspiration and ideas, the traditions that have created a rock hard foundation for taking and copying and reliving are so instilled within the creative life that even legal technicalities might not breach it.

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