Plaintiff freelance photojournalist sued defendant website publisher for copyright infringement over photos plaintiff took of a luxury maximum security prison in Norway in 2010. Defendants posted the photos on its website in 2011 without permission, in connection with a widely-publicized story of a notorious mass shooter being relocated there. Plaintiff registered the copyright in his photos in 2015 and filed suit in 2018, claiming that he did not learn of the alleged infringement until 2016.
Each party filed motions for summary judgment. Plaintiff claimed that the court should enter summary judgment in his favor because he had a valid copyright to the photographs, and there was no dispute that defendant published several of them without authorization. Defendant asserted that plaintiff’s claims were time-barred by the Copyright Act’s three-year statute of limitations, because he knew, or should have known, of the infringement when interest in the photos spiked following the remand of the alleged mass murderer to the prison where the photos were taken.
Photos included in copyright registration
The court found there was no genuine issue as to any material fact concerning plaintiff’s ownership of the copyright in the photos. And defendant conceded it published the photos without authorization. Defendant had challenged whether plaintiff’s copyright registration covered the photos at issue. Plaintiff had not introduced the deposit materials, but had submitted a sworn statement saying the photos had been included in the registration. The court found the sworn statement to carry the issue – had the defendant filed a motion to compel or sought the deposit materials from the copyright office, it may have been able to show the photos were not included. But on these facts, it was clear to the court that the copyright registration covered the photos.
Statute of limitations – no duty to scour
The court denied defendant’s motion for summary judgment, finding that the copyright infringement claims were not barred by the statute of limitations. Civil actions for copyright infringement must be “commenced within three years after the claim accrued.” 17 U.S.C. § 507(b). The Second Circuit has stated that the “discovery rule” governs when the statute of limitations begins to run: an infringement claim does not ‘accrue’ until the copyright holder discovers, or with due diligence should have discovered, the infringement.
The court found that plaintiff’s knowledge about general interest in the prison following the news stories about the mass shooter being relocated there was not sufficient to constitute constructive discovery that his photographs of that prison were being infringed. Plaintiff did not have knowledge of any infringement of his work and there was no reason for him to think, or duty for him to scour the internet to find out if, anyone was using his photographs without his consent. The court cited Wu v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2015 WL 5254885 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 10, 2015) to observe that “[i]f that were the expectation, then stock photo agencies and photographers likely would spend more money monitoring their licenses than they receive from issuing licenses.”
Masi v. Moguldom Media Group, 2019 WL 3287819 (S.D.N.Y., July 22, 2019)