The U.S Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has recently ruled in favor of a copyright infringement claim regarding a news site’s usage of a photo of Ted Nugent without appropriate credit. This case becomes one of the earliest federal appellate decision to interpret the U.S. Supreme Court’s updated “fair use” test.
This February 6 ruling in the appeal made by photographer Larry Philpot could indicate a shift in courts’ attitudes towards the use of unlicensed images in publications. Specifically, legal observers have suggested that lower courts may start to take a stricter stance post the May decision in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith by the Supreme Court. The high court ruled that the Andy Warhol Foundation had infringed photographer Lynn Goldsmith’s copyright by producing silk-screens based on her image of the singer Prince, as the creative alteration to the work was deemed insufficient.
“Fair use is a notoriously difficult and fact-specific analysis, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Warhol did little to un-complicate it,” pointed out copyright attorney Cindy Gierhart. This complex and multi-layered realm of the law continues to evolve, with the Fourth Circuit’s February ruling contributing to the ongoing discourse.