> Just because you are using your hand, doesn't mean that you magically are no longer copying
All art is copying. A painter selected a set of colors, choosing some over others, and then used their own skill and a brush to put those colors to canvas in order to create something based on how they saw an object in the world around them. Their subject was filtered by the eyes and perspective of the artist. The artist chose what to keep identical, what to emphasize, what to remove, or when to add something that the subject they were painting never had. The result is something unique that represents the artist's viewpoint.
The photo was clearly the artist's subject, and so it is very similar, but what resulted was not a reproduction of the original. Personally, I like the original photo much better, but I might like another artist's take on it even more than the original photo. That's why we should be careful when granting copyright protections. When artists can freely create new works by reinterpreting the subjects, ideas, and output of other artists we get a more rich and thriving culture filled with different artistic works to choose from according to our own preferences. It's important to police reproductions so that artists can continue to be rewarded for their works, but over-apply copyright and you not only censor artists, you can prevent yourself from having or experiencing something that would have deeply touched you, or even changed you.
There are clear differences between the painting and the photo, multiple things were added and removed. You might not place much value in them, but that's purely subjective. I must place more importance on those changes than you do because I have a preference for the photo over the painting. Objectively, those changes do exist regardless of how we feel about them.
It's clear that one is a mirror image of the other with minor Photoshop edits. I think it's clear to just about everybody. I don't believe you are arguing in good faith.
IANAPS, but I don’t think these are minor ps edits (or that it’s even ps) after overlaying the two and sliding the opacity. That’s a grey area no doubt, and the source of “inspiration” is clear, but you’re probably overtrivializing it.
I don't think the claim is that it's literally Photoshopped. It's a painting. It could be a painting of a Photoshopped version of the photo, or the changes could have been made while painting. There isn't any legal basis for distinguishing between digital and physical works here -- a copy is a copy, and a physical copy with alterations is as much a derivative work as a digital copy with alterations.
Would you consider an oil painting that exactly duplicated the photograph to be sufficiently different to not be covered by the original artist's copyright?
I think if the painting were perfectly identical than it'd be just a reproduction and it should violate the photo's copyright, but even if such a thing were possible for a very skilled artist to pull off, I don't think that'd be something that happens very often. I'd guess that most artists would have a hard time not making changes.
We want artists to be protected from outright reproductions of their work, so that'd include minor low effort changes in photoshop made just to get around copyright. Artists should be free to create their own versions of existing works though. Copyright is supposed to encourage the creation of art after all.
OK. You should make it clearer that you're arguing for a weaker system of author's rights, not just making claims about the current system. I favor copyright reform but what you're suggesting would destroy the ability for artists to commercially exploit their work.
The difference is between crafting something transformative and a reproduction. If you simply typed up the same story (even with minor changes) you haven't created anything. Turning a typed work into a typed work isn't really meaningful. A better analogy might be if you retold the story yourself aloud, from memory, making changes by adding characters and omitting scenes that you didn't think were as exciting and adding new ones.
That's how stories were shared before copyright. Someone would tell a story, and someone else would hear it and later share it with others and each time it was told by someone new changes would be made. Each storyteller would tell their own version, including the best parts from other versions and trying new changes on each audience and gradually the story would evolve as the most popular changes would be included more often and propagate farther.
All art is copying. A painter selected a set of colors, choosing some over others, and then used their own skill and a brush to put those colors to canvas in order to create something based on how they saw an object in the world around them. Their subject was filtered by the eyes and perspective of the artist. The artist chose what to keep identical, what to emphasize, what to remove, or when to add something that the subject they were painting never had. The result is something unique that represents the artist's viewpoint.
The photo was clearly the artist's subject, and so it is very similar, but what resulted was not a reproduction of the original. Personally, I like the original photo much better, but I might like another artist's take on it even more than the original photo. That's why we should be careful when granting copyright protections. When artists can freely create new works by reinterpreting the subjects, ideas, and output of other artists we get a more rich and thriving culture filled with different artistic works to choose from according to our own preferences. It's important to police reproductions so that artists can continue to be rewarded for their works, but over-apply copyright and you not only censor artists, you can prevent yourself from having or experiencing something that would have deeply touched you, or even changed you.