Steinberg v. Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. 663 F.Supp. 706 (S.D.N.Y. 1987) Steinberg drew an illustration of New York City that was featured on the cover of a magazine. Columbia used a very similar-looking illustration of New York City in a promotional poster for a movie. Steinberg sued for copyright infringement. Columbia admitted that they had used Steinberg's illustration as a basis for their poster. However, they argued that they were dissimilar enough that it wasn't an infringement. Columbia argued that they merely copied Steinberg's idea, not his expression, and ideas cannot be the basis of copyright protection. The Trial Court found for Steinberg. The Trial Court found that the two works were substantially similar. The Court looked at a number of properties of the two illustrations and found that they both had certain things in common which were not common among other illustrations of New York. The Court defined substantially similar to be "whether the average lay observer would recognize the alleged copy as having been appropriated from the copyrighted work."