U2 Album Cover Ripped Off?

Some have called the cover of U2's upcoming No Line On The Horizon "zen," but American musician Taylor Deupree is calling it a rip-off.

Both the U2 disc and Deupree and Richard Chartier's 2006 album, Specification.Fifteen, use the same photograph by Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto. (You can see both covers below.) Deupree isn't happy that U2 are using the same photograph and thinks they could have done a bit more research about it.

"U2's forthcoming album "no line on the horizon" is nearly an exact rip-off* of mine and richard chartier’s "specification.fifteen" which came out a couple of years ago," Deupree wrote in a Jan. 17 entry on his blog. "both covers feature a photograph by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto.

"specification.fifteen" was created directly in conjunction with Sugimoto and his retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC. so.. before you let people run off about how "cool" the new U2 cover is.. show them ours first…"

Deupree later updated the post with an addendum in which he said he hadn't suggested there were any legal issues with the albums using the photograph, but suggested that U2 probably should have chosen something else from a graphic design point of view.

"this minor ordeal has become more a question of a project that was small, intimate and experimental (and the chance of a lifetime for a small artist) vs. the massive pop culture machine," he wrote. "in the end we all know who wins."

No Line On The Horizon comes out on March 3.

The artwork for Chartier and Deupree's Specification.Fifteen is on the left, and the cover of U2's No Line On The Horizon is on the right: