A federal district court in New York has dismissed copyright infringement claims brought by photographers against the National Football League (NFL) and its teams, and licensing agents including Getty Images and the Associated Press (AP). The claims against Getty were ordered to arbitration.
Background
The plaintiffs photographed events for the NFL and individual clubs. The photographs were generally taken on “spec”, essentially meaning they retained ownership of copyrights in the works and earned income by licensing their photos.
The NFL entered into licensing agreements with Getty between 2004 and 2009, and thereafter with AP for NFL images. During the period of the NFL/Getty agreement, the plaintiffs each entered into Getty Contributor Agreements under which they became contributing photographers for Getty, and Getty received the right to license their NFL photos. After the expiration of the NFL/Getty agreements, the plaintiffs entered into similar AP Contributor Agreements and transferred their existing NFL content to AP.
The plaintiffs took issue with Getty and AP granting the NFL “complimentary” use of their photographs and brought suit for copyright infringement. The plaintiff also brought claims against the use of their photos in connection with a deal between AP and Replay — an online dealer of sports-related photographs — through which Replay operated an “NFL Photo Store” selling the photos.
No Copyright Infringement
The plaintiffs primarily alleged that AP “exceeded the scope” of its rights under the AP Contributor Agreements by granting the NFL an invalid sublicense and by offering the photos for sale through Replay’s “NFL Photo Store”. The court found that AP has acted within its broad rights under the contributor agreements, and therefore no claims could be stated for direct or vicarious or contributory copyright infringement. The NFL, its teams, and Replay were also granted dismissal by extension of the broad protections of the contributors licenses. Finally, any remaining claims against Getty must be resolved in arbitration due to binding arbitration clause.
Preemption
The court also rejected state claw claims, including breach of contract and unjust enrichment, on the grounds that the claims relied on the same substantive allegations as the Copyright Act, and were preempted.
The case is Spinelli v National Football League, et al (Case No. 1:13-cv-07398-RWS)
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