The logo for the Michael Jordan brand of sporting products is probably as recognizable as the swoosh logo of its parent company Nike. Recently, it made headlines again for a less-than-positive reason.
New York-based photographer Jacobus Rentmeester has filed a copyright lawsuit against Nike for plagiarizing one of his photographs to create the now iconic Jordan “Jumpman” logo.
According to this report by The Oregonian, Rentmeester first captured Michael Jordan in this famous pose in 1984 for a feature in Life magazine—Nike then went on to create an uncannily similar photograph in 1985, which subsequently inspired the Jumpman logo in 1987.
Although Nike did pay the photographer US$15,000 to use his picture for two years, he feels that the use of his photo in the making of the Jumpman logo “violates his copyright and goes beyond the original agreement he had with the corporation”.
Read more about this lawsuit here—do you think that there has been a copyright violation in this case?
Rentmeester's original photograph for Life magazine
The very similar photograph Nike captured
[via PetaPixel]