ABSTRACT
In 1984, a photographer named Jacobus Rentmeester instructed University of North Carolina basketball player Michael Jordan to perform a grand jeté, a ballet move in which the dancer leaps forward and extends her legs in opposite directions. Rentmeester saw the photograph in 1985, threatened to sue, and Nike agreed to pay him $15,000 to continue using the photograph on posters and billboards for two years. The crux of this analysis was whether Nike’s photograph was “substantially similar” to Rentmeester’s photo. Applying this reasoning to the two photographs, the court concluded that “just as Rentmeester made a series of creative choices in the selection and arrangement of the elements in this photograph, so too Nike’s photographer made his own distinct choices in that regard.” Judge Wood also touched upon a dilemma faced by professional photographers: deciding whether to remain in “private mode” on one of the most popular public photo-sharing platforms in the world, or to promote and share work publicly.
