Hi Matt.

The recent request Toyota made to have certain photos of Toyota vehicles removed from the public wallpaper site, DesktopNexus, was the result of an internal miscommunication.

To protect the legal rights and agreements we have with the photographers we hire, we ask that the photographs not be used for direct consumer advertising, sales brochures and the like.

If people wish to post their own photos of one of their own vehicles, that's their right. In fact, we're pleased that people would want to show their Toyota vehicles to the world. So have at it. Consider the wallpapers on DesktopNexus to be fair game for personal use.

Please let your readers know that we offer a sincere apology to the DesktopNexus site and its users for any inconvenience or disruption this miscommunication may have caused.

Thanks for your understanding,

Scott DeYager
Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.
Corporate Communications

The automaker clearly owns the car images it created, such as press photos and catalogs. However, Toyota loses some authority over these works when they disseminate them tot he public at large. But let's ignore that for a moment and focus on the other side of content — works created by individuals of Toyota products owned by individuals. An automaker doesn't posses the copyright far a painting of a Toyota Camry produced by an individual and uploaded to the site. They don't have the copyright on an image of a Toyota as shot by someone else, like this shot of someone's personal Highlander.

As Torrent Freak points out, Toyota hasn't sent an official copyright notice to the site but has merely unofficially requested the images be taken down. If they sent a DMCA (The Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notice, there would have to be a discernment between different wallpapers. The desktop site's owner said that Toyota wants to be paid to identify what is and what isn't a photo covered by Toyota's copyrights. The Japanese carmaker can win, essentially, by dragging this out into an expensive legal standoff. But why should they try?

Most of these images are actually used as promotional materials, which means that the company hopes people will share them. Many of them are wallpapers. From what we've seen on the site, most of the wallpapers are created to promote Toyota vehicles. In fact, the only negative images we've seen came after Toyota made this move. It seems strange that they're looking to piss off the same demographic group they created an entire brand to capture. Of course, the Scion Taco Truck will surely bring them back.

[Torrent Freak]