"Legal authority on this question - does an agreement appointing an entity as a copyright owner's exclusive agent provide statutory standing to sue for infringement? - is few and far between," Boulee noted.īoulee largely based this determination on a 1987 case argued before the Eleventh Circuit between the manufacturers of Cabbage Patch Kids toys and another company - Schlaifer, Nance & Co. "Because a nonexclusive license does not convey an ownership interest, a nonexclusive licensee does not have standing to sue for copyright infringement."īoulee said that the terms of agreement between Afanador and Creative Photographers "plainly reserves ownership of the copyright in Afanador" and thus the court sought to determine whether Creative Photographers had standing as an exclusive licensee. "A 'transfer of copyright ownership' occurs when a copyright owner conveys an exclusive license 'of any of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright,' but a transfer of ownership does not occur when that owner conveys only a nonexclusive license," Boulee wrote. Copyright Act and existing case doctrine show that a party without an ownership interest in a work, or without being an exclusive licensee, does not have legal standing to sue. Boulee agreed with Torres in his decision Monday, stating that the U.S. Torres had argued that the case should be dismissed on the ground that Creative Photographers did not have legal standing under the Copyright Act and that, even if the agency does have legal standing to sue, it failed to state a required claim to relief because her works are protected by fair use doctrine. Lynn Goldsmith, and another by a new federal tribunal created to address such claims between lesser-known artists. Supreme Court in the case of The Andy Warhol Foundation For The Visual Arts v. The news comes ahead of two similar cases that could have a profound impact on such copyright cases: the highly expected decision from the U.S.
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