Inspiration or Infringement?


Last year, the son of photographer Guy Bourdain sued Madonna claiming that the video for the song “Hollywood” infringed on Bourdain’s copyrighted photography, because the video adopted a similar style to Bourdain’s noir photos. They settled earlier this month.
Now, lets look at some robots. Low Culture suggests, Twentieth Century Fox, meet award-winning director Chris Cunningham and notes that the visual style of the upcoming film I, Robot (based on the Isaac Asimov book) is visually similar to the video for Bjork’s song All is Full of Love.
2004_06_doubletaking-thumb.jpg
Should this kind of visual homage be considered a type of copyright infringement? If so, how much style comprises an expression, rather than an idea?
(via Gothamist)

Andrew Raff @andrewraff