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A photographer from the US in Trafalgar Square yesterday complained to me that I'd infringed his copyright by apparently taking the same picture as him. From a distance away I saw an interesting situation and walked over quickly, took a very quick frame only half-aware of a person alongside until he spoke to me. According to him, by standing in the same place and making the same picture with the same lens and perspective (and so replicating the scene) I was copying his picture which would, in effect, stand up in a US court. I said that I'd never heard of such a thing and that it wouldn't apply in the UK: That two images made by different people using different cameras recording two files are the property of two authors. An example I added, is two news photographers standing next to each other photographing the same event wouldn't share the same copyright. 'Ah', he said, 'News is different'! He said he shot stock pictures and assumed I did too so just like him I'd probably been infringed, which I said was the case. But more intriguingly when I asked him who he was he very firmly declined saying, 'if I tell you, many people will find out and they'll all want to ask me out for coffee'. I can't be sure but don't believe my picture look like his - and plagiarising isn't my thing - so I showed him my picture, making the point that it was unlikely I'd made exactly the same composition anyway. He refused to show me his before walking away. The picture got better after that and it made a decent sequence - so his loss. Here's my edit in date taken order. So to our US friends I ask, has he in any way got a half-baked point or is he merely delusional, confused with US copyright law? Who was he! And why doesn't he like chatting with admirers about photography over coffee? Now that really is odd.