Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony · US Supreme Court · 1884

Can a photograph be copyrighted?

Short answer: Yes: the photographer is its author.

The facts. In 1882 a photographer posed Oscar Wilde in a carefully arranged portrait. A company sold 85,000 copies without permission. It argued a photo is just a machine's copy of reality, not something an author writes.

The ruling. Burrow-Giles v. Sarony (1884): The Court upheld copyright in photographs, finding the pose, lighting, and costume reflected the author's original ideas.

Wilde was then on his American lecture tour. Over a century later, the same argument about machines and authorship has come back with AI art. The photographer, Napoleon Sarony, was famous for celebrity portraits.

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For fun, not legal advice.