Jordan Flew A Photographer To Sue Nike For Being Dismissed By The Court.

The US Supreme Court rejected a copyright case appeal on Monday: Photographer Jacobus Rentmeester accused Nike of unauthorized use of the Zhang Kongzhong flying pictures taken by basketball superstar Michael Jordan in 1984.

In 2018, the United States federal court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had rejected his appeal, Rentmeester said that the ruling killed creativity and encouraged piracy.

Rentmeester is a former life magazine photographer and a former Olympian. He took this picture for Jordan at the University of North Carolina in 1984 and published it in a magazine when Jordan was about to represent the United States in the Summer Olympics in Losangeles.

It is said that the two men had made some conception of the action of the photo, and finally designed the action of air ballet.

According to court documents, Rentmeester said that his experience of filming Mikhail Baryshnikov in the American Ballet gave him the inspiration to capture Jordan.

After joining the NBA bulls in Chicago, Nike asked Jordan to jump out of the Chicago skyline and wear similar Nike shoes. The new photos were made into the famous silhouette Logo.

Sports sub brands under the Jumpman logo now generate billions of dollars of sales every year, and the flying silhouette logo also appears on all kinds of advertising and products of Nike.

In 1985, Nike agreed to pay 1.5 $10000 to Rentmeester for the right to use two years' photo in Chicago on advertisements and posters.

Nike has not paid other forms of copyright fees to photographers.

"The photo of Rentmeester is an original work of art, expressing Michael Jordan's grace and athletic ability in an amazing way, attracting the attention of Nike and the whole world."

The appeal says, "these expressive elements are created by photographers and then pirated by Nike."

In 2015, the Federal District Court in Portland, Oregon dismissed Rentmeester's lawsuit. Judge Paul Watfod said that although Jordan's action originality came from the photographer's photo, his copyright was not enough to form a legal monopoly on the action.

In 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled that Rentmeester had lost because he could not prove that the details in the two photos were basically similar. The photos of Chicago version were taken by Nike photographer Chuck Kuhn, which was different from the location, back and lighting of Jordan's legs in the original film. Nike argued that Jumpman's Logo was based on the Chicago version of the photo.

The photographer tried to appeal to the Supreme Court, but on March 25 the Supreme Court dismissed the case, creating a precedent for a brand to make advertisements based on past works of art, and only to make fine adjustments to the works of art is not infringement.

The particularity of this case is that it involves the issue of whether the photographer's creative expression should also be protected by copyright, and whether photography should get the same copyright protection as other art forms.

JasonRosenberg, an intellectual property lawyer, commented that the visible and creative expression in the form of books is entitled to copyright protection, but the idea behind the photo is not.

According to Forbes's fortune list, Jordan, 56, is worth 1 billion 900 million US dollars and is currently the main shareholder of the NBA Sherlock Hornets.