Intellectual Property Law

Important Case (Maybe): 10th Circuit on Copyrightability of Digital Model

By Marty Schwimmer

Plaintiff Meshworks was hired to make computerized, animated 3D models of several Toyota cars for an ad campaign. Faithfulness to what a 'real' car would look like was a 'point' of the model (which was used on web swites so that customers could manipulate the images (e.g. change color)). A dispute broke out, plaintiff sued for infringement, defendants claimed the models weren't protectible, District Court held that models were insufficiently original for copyright protection, 10th circuit affirmed.

Prof Patry criticism of District Court decision here. I certainly hope he'll weigh in on the circuit court decision.

I've read the decision once. My initial take is this:

The court is conflating fidelity with originality. In my view, if there was creativity and originality in achieving the fidelity, then to the extent those creative and original efforts are expressed, that expression should be copyrightable. The expression is embodied in the final work.

Read the opinion, think it over, please comment.

Full post as published by Trademark Blog on June 17, 2008 (boomark / email).