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Thursday, January 5, 2012

Copyright protection as the reason to stop pedestrians from taking pictures

As a headline in a local Chinese newspaper (Apple Daily Hong Kong), Dolce & Gabbana stopped pedestrians from taking pictures of their shop in Canton Road, Kowloon and the explanation offered was 'copyright protection'. According to the newspaper, these pedestrians were walking in the sidewalk about 4 metres away from the shop, and whenever they pointed their camera towards the shop, they were stopped and the staff or the security guard blocked the view of the cameras.

The reporters of the newspaper had further tested out other shops selling luxury goods in the area and only Dolce & Gabbana really watched out for anyone with camera near their shop.

Local lawyers were quoted that display of a shop facing the street are subject to photographic snapshot by pedestrians in public area, such as the sidewalk of Canton Road.

Actually this is a very innovative way to use 'Copyright Protection' and 'Protection of Intellectual Property' to restrict the right of those walking in the sidewalk of a busy street in Hong Kong.

2 comments:

Patent Agent said...

The spotlight created around the ban of photo taking outside Dolce & Gabbana continues and will reach it's peak when people encourage Hong Kong residents to go and have a photo-taking event in the afternoon of Sunday. It would be interesting to watch how PR management played into such an issue arising out of 'IP protection'.

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