bpulv wrote:
I am not a lawyer, but if there is a legal parallel between copyright and patent law, it may be legal. As I understand patent law, if you make an improvement on an existing patent, it may be legal. The painting could be considered as an improvement on the photograph. If there is a lawyer out there please weigh in!
no, the 2 are very different - basically copyright covers the expression if an idea; patent covers the idea itself & is much more limiting
for this example tho, the photographer is clearly wrong - they went against the rules of the submission - in no way did she actually 'take' the picture - else i could submit my mona lisa pix that i 'took'