The french title of Edelman’s book "Le Droit saisi par la photographie"
puns on the law being seized or caught by photography, surprised or
caught out by it. Photography, a technical innovation developing
independently of law, contradicts the existing formulations of property
right in representations of things’
Photography's initial reception underscored the contradiction between
its acceptance as testimonial aid — a reproduction of the real — and as
commodity — a production of the photographic artist. Nineteenth-century
French legal thinking originally dismissed the artistic worth of the
photograph, and, hence, its legal claim to copyright protection.
