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The facts in Mango v. BuzzFeed are fairly straight forward. Mango is a freelance photographer who licensed a photograph to the New York Post.  The Post included the photo in a story and below the photo included Mango’s name – an attribution known in the publishing industry as a “gutter credit”.  Three months after the story was published by the Post, BuzzFeed published a related story and included Mango’s photo.  BuzzFeed did not get permission from Mango to use the photo.  Further, BuzzFeed removed Mango’s name from the gutter credit.  Mango sued for copyright infringement and for removal or alteration of copyright management information under the DMCA.  Prior to trial BuzzFeed stipulated to liability on the copyright infringement claim, leaving Mango’s DMCA claim as the sole issue for the District Court
Continue Reading Second Circuit Frames Novel Issue of Photographer’s Claim of Copyright Infringement and DMCA Violation

Scott-Hervey-10-webNorth Jersey Media Group Inc. is the copyright owner of the iconic photograph of three firefighters raising an American flag at the ruins of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. On September 11, 2013, a Fox News producer posted a photograph that juxtaposed the 9/11 photograph with a World War II photograph of four U.S. Marines raising an American flag on Iwo Jima on the Facebook page for the Fox News’ television program Justice with Judge Jeanine. North Jersey Media Group sued Fox, claiming that the posting of the combined image infringed its copyright. Fox news argued that the use was protected “fair use” and moved for summary judgment. The court denied Fox’s motion and Fox is now appealing to the 2nd Circuit.

Fox’s appeal centers around the lower court’s analysis of the first fair use factor: the purpose and character of the use. The purpose of this factor is to test whether the allegedly infringing work is “transformative.” A work is transformative when it adds something new to the work allegedly infringed, with a further purpose or different character, altering the original work with new expression, meaning, or message. A work is transformative if it does something more than repackage or republish the original copyrighted work. A transformative work is one that serves a new and different function from the original work and is not a substitute for it. As the Supreme Court noted in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc, “the more transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of other factors, … that may weigh against a finding of fair use.”
Continue Reading Is Fox News Proposing a New Standard For Determining Fair Use?