Background
Annie Leibovitz, a world-famous photographer, entered into an Artist Agreement with Great Bowery Inc., operating as Trunk Archive, granting it the exclusive worldwide right to license, market, and promote her photographs. However, the agreement reserved the right for Leibovitz to collaborate with other entities for special projects. Great Bowery later discovered unauthorized use of Leibovitz’s Star Wars photographs on a website operated by Consequence Sound LLC and sued for copyright infringement. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants, ruling that Great Bowery lacked statutory standing because Leibovitz had retained rights that allegedly prevented the grant from being exclusive. The district court also denied Great Bowery’s motion to amend the complaint to add Leibovitz as a co-plaintiff.
The court’s reasoning
The Eleventh Circuit reviewed the case de novo. The court explained that under the Copyright Act, the bundle of exclusive rights is divisible, and an exclusive license constitutes a transfer of copyright ownership. The court rejected the district court’s conclusion that Leibovitz’s retention of certain rights automatically meant Great Bowery lacked an exclusive license. The court held that Leibovitz could retain exclusive rights for specific uses while simultaneously granting Great Bowery exclusive rights for other uses, allowing both to sue for infringement of their respective rights. The court also clarified that while defendants cannot challenge the sufficiency of a writing under Section two hundred four when the parties do not dispute it, they may challenge whether an exclusive right was actually transferred. The court affirmed the denial of the motion to amend as untimely but vacated the summary judgment on the merits.
Because that analysis was mistaken, we vacate the summary judgment order and remand for further proceedings.
Opinion of the Court, Page 2
What it means going forward
The decision clarifies that copyright owners can subdivide exclusive rights among multiple parties, each of whom may sue for infringement of their specific rights. It also confirms that defendants retain the ability to challenge a plaintiff’s standing by proving no exclusive right was transferred, even if the copyright owner does not dispute the transfer.
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