Be Careful Selling Photos with the “I LOVE NY” Logo Featured

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Photographers are no stranger to copyright laws – or their violation.

Photo by Zichuan Han from Pexels.

Yet this story is somewhat unique in that respect.

Namely, you better be careful if you feature Milton Glaser’s iconic “I LOVE NY” logo in any of your pictures that you try to sell because the New York Department of Economic Development is quite serious about protecting its trademark it seems.

PetaPixel reports that photographer Michael Goldrei didn’t know about this and learned about it through Alamy, the stock photography company he was using, when the company restricted one of his photos because it featured the iconic Glaser design. While Alamy didn’t remove the photo, they did rescind his permission to sell it and, instead, made it available for editorial use only.

Wondering aloud how many photographs could be impacted by this kind of enforcement, Goldrei told the website: “In a world of copyright and lawyers, this didn’t come as a complete shock to me, although it does raise the question as to just how many photos of towns/cities feature logos of some kind. In an age where walking through a city may expose you to hundreds of logos on clothing, shop signs, coffee cups, etc. every few minutes, where should companies draw the line as to what is their intellectual property, and what is just part of the (unavoidable) street furniture of everyday life?”

You can view the offending photograph at this link.

What do you think of the “I LOVE NY” logo being featured in photographs? Should photographers be wary about including something like that in a picture? Why or why not? Let us know your thoughts on this interesting application of copyright in the comments below.

Don’t forget to check out our other photography news on Light Stalking at this link right here.

[PetaPixel]

About Author

Kehl is our staff photography news writer since 2017 and has over a decade of experience in online media and publishing and you can get to know him better here and follow him on Insta.

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