A few months back, Sheri wrote about copyright infringement in an earlier post, and cited one particular case where Microsoft was sued by photographer Louis Psihoyos for allegedly copying a photograph entitled “500 TVs.” Psihoyos’s image shows a large room filled with hundreds of television screens.

It might be even odder that Apple —   Microsoft’s most notorious rival, has been involved a more recent lawsuit around the same image in its promoting of AppleTV.

Amazingly, Apple’s latest version of its Safari web browser has a feature called “Top Sites” which also draws inspiration from — you guessed it — the same image, using miniature versions of recently visited sites as a way of seeing what’s new in webland. While Mr. Psihoyos might disagree, I think this is the best misappropriation of his image yet.

The feature is a huge timesaver for news junkies and those of us who visit blogs — you can see if a page has new content at a glance. New  content gets a little blue star icon for even quicker glancing. Clicking on the tiny image takes you directly to the new page in one action.

I am amazed just how many have drawn inspiration from the source image…

The original photograph:

The Microsoft ad (you can see the company staying true to their roots of ripping something off only to make it worse):

Stills from the recent Apple TV ads:

This was really quite blatant:

And the new Safari web browser’s Top Sites:

However, the rampant inspiration of the image is not limited to the computer world.

A Coldplay video seems to have similar theme going on:

As does a scene in the Matrix:

If you really wanted to have this experience at home, and the new Safari feature doesn’t quite do it for you, a company called 9x can hook you up for a small fee…