The humble stick figure drawing dates back to the ancient cave paintings of Lascaux, and U.S. copyright law had its origins more than two centuries ago, but to our knowledge the two had never intersected until quite recently. In Blehm v. Jacobs, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit determined on Dec. 27, 2012, that amusingly stylized stick figures in various athletic poses were copyrightable, but were not infringed by similar athletically posed stick figures used on the popular "Life Is Good" clothing line.1 The decision includes numerous visual examples of the works at issue, and these visual comparisons forcefully illustrate the court’s basic point: Copyright law requires not just overall similarity of appearance, but similarity as to the original, protectable elements of plaintiff’s work.
The same principle controls the First Circuit’s Jan. 7, 2013, ruling in Harney v. Sony Pictures Television.2 Harney concerned a newspaper photograph that was reshot by a TV-film producer in connection with a docudrama about the subjects of the photo. The two photos are indeed extremely similar, and intentionally so, but because the similarities did not relate to the creative contributions the plaintiff made to the original photo, there was no finding of infringement. This column will discuss these two cases, and will include images of the works at issue so readers may judge for themselves.
