Photographer sues over shark picture used in ‘Steve Jobs’

A photo of an open-mouthed great white shark is at the center of a copyright infringement lawsuit filed Thursday in Las Vegas against the creators and distributors of the new movie "Steve Jobs."

Las Vegas resident Carl Roessler, an experienced scuba diver who has photographed sharks and other marine wildlife for more than four decades, claims Universal Pictures used his 1994 photo, titled "Maddened Attack," in the movie without his permission.

An email sent to Roessler on Friday was forwarded to his Washington, D.C., attorney, Tobey Marzouk, who responded with the following statement:

"There is no question that Carl Roessler's iconic shark photograph was used and played a key role in the 'Steve Jobs' movie. And there is no question that Mr. Roessler never granted Universal permission to use his photograph. And, lastly, there is no question that Universal did not give credit to Mr. Roessler as the copyright owner. Mr. Roessler has initiated discussions with Universal in the hope that this copyright infringement dispute is resolved fairly and quickly."

No one at Universal could be reached Friday for comment on the lawsuit.

Apple Computer Inc., now known as Apple Inc., licensed use of Roessler's "Maddened Attack" photo for one year in 1998, according to the lawsuit, and company co-founder Steve Jobs first used it during a presentation on May 6, 1998, to introduce the Apple PowerBook G3 laptop computer.

Roessler claims he took the photo from inside a shark cage in February 1994, during a 10-day diving expedition he led near the Neptune Islands, about 50 miles southwest of Adelaide, Australia.

"The Maddened Attack shark photograph is an iconic shark image, capturing the aggressive, vicious, predatory nature of the shark, mouth open and teeth ready to crush, kill and devour its victim," according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit indicates Jobs used the photo during the presentation in 1998 to make the point that the new Apple laptop was "substantially faster than laptops using Intel Corporation's Pentium chip." During the presentation, an open-mouthed shark appeared on the PowerBook's computer screen, and Jobs joked, "It eats Pentium notebooks for lunch."

Roessler claims Apple also used the photo as the central image in an advertisement with the phrase "Think different."

According to the lawsuit, "Maddened Attack" first appears in the movie "Steve Jobs" in a scene that shows Jobs, played by Michael Fassbender, interacting with Apple employees on May 6, 1998, as he is preparing to go on stage to introduce the PowerBook G3 and the iMac line of computers.

The lawsuit claims the photo then appears in the next scene, where it is displayed on a large screen behind Jobs while he argues with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, played by Seth Rogen.

According to the lawsuit, neither of the two scenes occurred in real life.

"In the movie, the enormous Maddened Attack shark image, poised above Jobs's small figure, comes to symbolize Jobs's inner demons, his uncontrollable, instinctual viciousness — a meanness well beyond conventional aggressiveness — that devours and destroys not just his relationships with others, but also his own integrity, his own soul," the lawsuit contends. "The Maddened Attack shark photograph is not a simple prop or background image, but rather is a key, essential character in the movie's concluding scenes, crystallizing for the audience the movie makers' answer to the question 'who is Steve Jobs?'"

In addition to damages, Roessler is seeking an injunction to prevent Universal Pictures and Legendary Pictures from infringing on his copyright. No one at Legendary could be reached for comment Friday.

The lawsuit also contains detailed information about Roessler's career in dive travel and photography.

According to the document, he graduated from Yale University in 1955 and worked for General Electric and IBM until 1964, when he returned to Yale to eventually head up the university's Scientific Computer Center "with the equivalent rank of full professor."

"As a young man, Mr. Roessler's hobby and passion was scuba diving," according to the lawsuit. "In 1969, acting on a long-held dream, Mr. Roessler left Yale and, with his wife and children, moved to the Caribbean islands of Curacao and Bonaire.

"For the next three years, Mr. Roessler hosted dive groups in the Caribbean and by 1972, Mr. Roessler was organizing and leading dive groups throughout the world."

That's when he started taking underwater photographs, eventually becoming "an expert at photographing marine life, in particular, sharks and coral reefs," the lawsuit claims.

Roessler's photographs have appeared in numerous books, magazine articles and website pages, according to the lawsuit. "Across a span of approximately forty years, he amassed a collection of over 300,000 photographs of marine life that he had taken in tropical ocean waters in the Caribbean, South Pacific, Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and elsewhere."

Roessler has focused on photographs of the Southwestern United States in recent years. He has authored and published five volumes of the book series "Masterpieces of Nature" with photographs of desert and mountain parks of the Southwest, as well as one volume with photographs of the Canadian Rockies.

He sells framed "Maddened Attack" prints through his website: http://www.divexprt.com/. He also sells other items with the image, such as mugs, greeting cards and T-shirts.

Contact reporter Carri Geer Thevenot at cgeer@reviewjournal.com or 702-384-8710. Find her on Twitter: @CarriGeer.