[airwot4]

Looking at this strategically it seems that the photographer simply didn't expect the band and the sponsor to be so close. He desparately tries to separate them into two entities (artist and commercial) when in reality they're essentially two facets of the same brand.

It does seem that the band massively overreacted though.

I don't think this will play in their favour now that this has been posted so widely. Apparently the photographer wants the last word on this.

[detuur]

Just because two businesses are close doesn't mean licenses are transferable. If the photographer gave his permission to use the picture for self-promotion (or even simply decided not to complain about it), that doesn't give them the right to grant that permission to a clothing store they're very buddy-buddy with.

[matz1]

Sure legality wise, that might be the case but nothing is ever black and white. Like in this case, no wonder the photographer received adverse reaction from the band.

[gdpgreg]

It's litterally black and white in intellectual property laws.

[matz1]

Not really, different judge may interpret the law differently.

[cthalupa]

You're literally just saying things, and saying them doesn't make this true.

Copyright law on this sort of thing is incredibly straightforward and completely settled. This isn't like recreating the likeness of someone, including their tattoos (another story popular in the past day on HN), this is clear cut commercial usage of someone else's copyrighted work, and his tolerance of non-commercial usage by the person photographed doesn't have any impact whatsoever on whether or not a different entity has the ability to use it to promote their clothing line.

This is an incredibly open and shut case with tens of thousands (probably hundreds of thousands, actually) of cases worth of clear cut precedent.

[matz1]

You think so, but good lawyer can always make any seemingly straight forward case to be not so straight forward.