Tag Archives: Copyright infringement



Street and Photography

Sharon Givoni Consulting Photography

Intellectual property lawyer, Sharon Givoni works with professional photographers. While many of her cases involve the photographer taking legal action, they can also easily find themselves as the defendant. One example is when photographing street art. Sometimes copyright law can prevent you from taking photos of street art if the effect of this means that […]

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Legally Speaking: Street Art (Part 2)

Sharon Givoni Consulting Street art

Did you know that you could infringe copyright in a painting if it features in the background of a photograph which is used for commercial purposes? Yes, true. The same applies to street art and even graffiti. If you reproduce an image of it in a book, newspaper, magazine or online that could actually breach […]

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Print & Pattern Protection

Sharon Givoni Consulting Retail and fashion Law

In the fashion industry and while the basic rule to remember is simply “do not copy”, what will amount to copying in any given situation can vary on the case.” This article explores the topic in light of some recent cases on point looking at Seafolly and Cotton On case studies by way of example. […]

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Understanding copyright risks for printers

Sharon Givoni Consulting Arts and design, Copyright, Intellectual Property

In this article, Sharon Givoni is interviewed by “Australian Printer” magazine about the risks of being liable for copyright infringement by simply photocopying or printing someone else’s artwork. Copyright risks can be minimised by taking some very simple steps. Read on to find out what these steps are. Read more… This article first appeared in […]

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Sharon Givoni Unpacks the Legal Dangers of Social Media for Fashion Labels

Sharon Givoni Consulting Retail and fashion Law

Fashion designers love getting ideas from all sorts of influences but what happens if you think that someone has gone too far and copied your designs? The Seafolly case decided in late 2012, shows that if you air your thoughts on Facebook and social media this can be very damaging and you could be taking […]

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Moral Rights and Copyright

Sharon Givoni Consulting Arts and design

Did you know that not attributing an author or artist can be a beach of their moral right? As can cutting up their photograph or painting? This article discusses Australia’s moral rights laws in the context of photography. Read more…

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Protecting textile patterns and designs

Sharon Givoni Consulting Arts and design, Copyright, Retail and fashion Law, Trade marks

If you design or manufacture patterned textiles or fabrics, you need to be careful not to copy other people’s textile designs and find yourself entangled in legal issues. This article talks about copyright and trade mark protection of patterns, trade marks and designs in textiles (including David Jones, Louis Vuitton and Levis). Read more… Note […]

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Inspiration… or Rip Off?

Sharon Givoni Consulting Arts and design, Copyright

We all get inspirited by one thing or another in life including when we create art works such as drawings and photographs. Madonna got inspired by a famous fashion photographer some years ago when creating one of her video clips and then threatened with legal action. Read more…

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The Fine Line between Copyright Infringement or Artistic Creativity

Sharon Givoni Consulting Arts and design, Copyright

This article looks at what happened when the owners of the Barbie doll (Mattel) took a photographer to court over the “creative” use of Barbie in a bold and daring set of photographers featuring Barbies cooking in a casserole dish and in a fondue pot. The fair use defence under copyright law came into play […]

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The Case for Binding Contracts

Sharon Givoni Consulting Arts and design, Copyright

Read how the owner of a holiday resort thought that they could use the photographer’s commercial images of the report without paying him. The court punished them even more because they had ignored the letters from the photographer asking for payment. Lucky for the photographer, he had a contract with them that set out what […]

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