This is such a weird objection (and it's occurring all over the thread, not just here). By the same logic, do you think you're entitled to any commercial stock photo, so long as it's "generic" or "mechanical" enough?
> By the same logic, do you think you're entitled to any commercial stock photo, so long as it's "generic" or "mechanical" enough?
Yes, obviously.
For example a simple direct photo of artwork has no copyright to the photographer. It doesn't matter if the person claims copyright - they don't have it.
There are tons of things people claim copyright to, without actually having that legal right. These photos of a VHS tape fall in that category - they do not meet the threshold of originality, because there is none. It is simply a mechanical photo of an object.
Copyright is a legal right, not a natural right. It's only given in specific circumstances.
Just because you did work, even if it was really hard, and you did a lot of work, does not mean you get copyright. That's simply not the legal standard.
You seem very confident about this. I think you're wrong. Can you show either a statute or a court case in which it was decided that a photograph --- a work explicitly designated as copyrightable since at least the Copyright Act of 1870 --- was found not to be protected by copyright due to insufficient originality?
For the countervailing evidence, you might check out the footnotes in Ets-Hokin v Skyy Spirits.
