Most online shoppers could tell you that all of Amazon's products are shot against a white background. The same shoppers could probably tell you, however, that they're not the only e-commerce site that does this. However, the giant retailer thinks that they should be. According to Racked, Amazon has a patent for taking product pictures against a seamless white background.
Say what?! Even though other e-commerce sites have been obviously doing this for just as long as they have, Amazon sneakily created a patent for it back in November 2011, which was recently just granted approval last month. The patent's name is "Studio arrangement," which describes their self-proclaimed "innovative" 40,000 square foot photo studio set in Brooklyn.
Perhaps they think they're entitled to this sort of product photography because of the insane rate of images they snap per day. Racked guesstimates over 19,000 product photos are shot in the Williamsburg studio on a daily basis. And while that seems like a lot of work, they've still managed to make time in creating a patent.
Who knows whether they'll actually succeed, however. Over 26,000 people have signed a petition against the patent. The petition reads, "We don't know if Amazon is about to start sending demand letters to photo studies, or if it just wanted to be able to say that a photography 101 trick that been used for decades is something it thought up." #BURN.
It'll be fun to see how this e-commerce drama will unfold. Stay tuned...
