FRANCE DEEMS LEGENDARY PHOTOGRAPHER UNORIGINAL in its court of law

Disgusting!!! An out and out rights grab!  The country of France has ruled that legendary music photographer Gered Mankowitz (The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, everybody) did not do "original" photography work in the 1960s r.e. his Hendrix portraiture.

Note that this LINK* refers to Mankowitz' wholly justified lawsuit to stop unauthorized reproduction and actual changing the image of his Hendrix photo by strangers to suit a commercial advertisement.

The one frame, a solo shot not seen in this fair use proof sheet above from the same session, according to the country of France and its © laws, is not original, with their "explanation": the Court held that the framing, background, and the choice of black and white were fairly common for this type of portrait. 

The photographer then explained the choices he made in relation to the posture of the subject, his costume and general attitude. The Court then found that, since the photographer failed to give sufficient explanations about these choices, he failed to establish that his photograph was original. One presumes the Louvre must now deem DaVinci's Mona Lisa portrait as unoriginal, since it was done for a client and reflects the client's visual wishes rather than the creative skill of the artist who just places Lisa del Giocondo in front of a landscape. These are hard times for Francophiles nowadays...


*http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/jimi-hendrix-portrait-denied-copyright-18692/