Judge Forrest of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in
Goldman v. Breitbart News, LLC has ruled in favor of photographer Justin Goldman that embedding a tweet that contains a copyright protected photo
does, in fact, constitute a copyright violation. If the ruling is upheld, it could have a major impact on the way media and many other Internet users get some of their imagery.
The court declined to adopt the Ninth Circuit’s “server test” as set forth in
Amazon v. Perfect 10, holding that the location of the allegedly infringed work does not determine whether a defendant has “publicly displayed’ that work in violation of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights. Put another way, “the fact that the image was hosted on a server owned and operated by an unrelated third party . . . does not shield” defendants from a finding that a plaintiff’s display right had been violated.
Goldman captured a photograph New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s meeting with members of the Boston Celtics in the Hamptons – a newsworthy occurrence in the context of NBA player trades. The event was reported on by Breitbart News and several other publications. The defendants embedded tweets containing Goldman’s photograph using in-line linking. Goldman sued for copyright infringement, asserting that this display in connection with the story violated his rights under copyright.
See a much more detailed story by Scott J. Sholder and Nancy Wolff
here.