Rogers v. Koons All Over Again?

Via the Art Law Blog: A district court in Illinois has concluded that “a photograph of a three dimensional toy is a derivative work under copyright law,” therefore anyone photographing the three-dimensional object without consent is infringing the three-dimensional author’s copyright.

To those familiar with Rogers v. Koons, this may seem like a logical conclusion. However, copyright scholar William Patry disagrees, arguing that photographs of three-dimensional objects, sans any tranformative effect, are depictions and not derivative works, thus granting the photographing party a copyright in the depiction of the object.

The case is Schrock v. Learning Curve. More on this here.