Does an exclusive agent for a photographer have standing to bring a copyright infringement suit on behalf of that photographer? The Ninth Circuit has said yes; the Northern District of Georgia says no. Plaintiff Creative Photographers, Inc. (“CPi”) represented non-party photographer Ruvén Afanador. The defendants are accused of infringing the copyright in one of...
Read more →I have long disagreed with the Ninth Circuit on a standard that I think is unduly crabbed. I’m talking specifically about the cause of action, and therefore remedies available, when the obligations in an agreement that include a copyright license are not met. The courts are in agreement that the obligations can be put...
Read more →I posed the question whether an overrun in a book printing was a breach of the copyright license granted for the use of photos in the book or just a breach of a covenant of the agreement. The court described the issue this way: According to Scholastic, “Corbis did not treat ongoing, high-volume...
Read more →When parties enter into an agreement that includes a copyright license, and there is thereafter a failure to comply with one of the terms in the agreement, a court will have to decide whether it is a failure to meet a condition precedent to the license, in which case the accused use is not...
Read more →I’ve written in the past (recursive link) about the phenomenon of copyright infringement lawsuits brought by photographers or their agents against textbook publishers. The textbook publishers allegedly exceed the license they had for the use of stock photos, either by exceeding the number of print copies authorized or using the works outside of the...
Read more →I previously wrote about an Oregon decision, Fathers & Daughters Nev., LLC v. Zhang. The case was dismissed because the author of the film, the plaintiff, had exclusively licensed the infringed rights to someone else, so couldn’t sue for infringement itself. This post is a separate one to address an interesting footnote in the...
Read more →I previously wrote about the licensing discussion in Palmer/Kane LLC v. Rosen Book Works LLC, but the decision also points out what is the near impossibility of successfully registering the copyright in a work so that you can actually have a lawsuit claiming it was infringed. Palmer/Kane originally alleged the infringement of 19 works,...
Read more →This is a big one. As I’ve written about in the past (recursive link), there is a huge upheaval in the stock photography industry over the use of photos in textbooks. In Palmer/Kane LLC v. Rosen Book Works LLC, plaintiff Palmer/Kane licensed the rights in its photos through several agencies, the relevant one here...
Read more →There are a slew of lawsuits against textbook publishers alleging use of stock photography beyond the scope of the original license (recursive link). Whether one characterizes it as massive intentional infringement, or a simple failure of the publishers to track their use and true-up on their licenses, it looks like it is a pervasive...
Read more →I’ve been writing for some time (recursive link) about numerous lawsuits between photographers, or their agencies, and textbook publishers that have used photographs in excess of what they originally licensed for their books. Mostly I’ve been writing about challenges to standing, which are early in the cases on a motion to dismiss. But some...
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