Court Rejects Dirt.com’s Post-Warhol Fair Use Defense in Photographer’s Copyright Lawsuit

A photographer is suing a real estate media site for copyright infringement after publishing several of his photos without permission. Scott Hervey and Jamie Lincenberg discuss this case and explain how media companies can handle similar situations in a post-Warhol world on this episode of The Briefing. Watch this episode on the Weintraub YouTube channel here. Show Notes: Scott: One of the recent copyright infringement cases post the Supreme Court's decision in Warhol is Brandon Vogts, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Brandon Vogts vs. Penske Media Corporation. This case involved the display of Vogts photographs in connection with various articles appearing on Penske's Dirt online media site. I'm Scott Hervey from Weintraub Tobin. I'm joined today by my colleague Jamie Lincenberg. We are going to take a look at this case and talk about how online media companies can deal with similar situations in a post-Warhol world, on this next installment of The Briefing by Weintraub Tobin. These are the facts of this case boots is a professional photographer who specializes in real estate photography. His clients include real estate companies, real estate agents and interior designers. The majority of these clients are real estate agents who retain Vogts to photograph a property to facilitate its sale. Dirt.com is an online news publication owned by Penske Media Corporation. Dirt publishes material on real estate transactions involving persons in the entertainment industry or prominent business persons. Dirt's articles are intended to provide a unique peek into those individuals' lifestyle. Dirt published various articles about transactions involving certain properties and used Vogts photographs in connection with those articles. Vogts eventually sued for copyright infringement. Jamie: And, Dirt advanced a fair use defense. Dirt claimed that it featured the photographs to provide readers with what he believed was a unique insight into the lifestyles of individuals who were involved in the transaction, including commentary and critique of the property featured in the photographs, and used only those photographs that Dirt Publishers believes were necessary to do so. After both parties moved for summary judgment, the Supreme Court ruled on Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts versus Goldsmith. Scott: Finding that Boots had established a prima facial case of copyright infringement, the court turned to Dirt's fair use argument. Now, to determine whether a work constitutes fair use, courts engage in a case by case analysis and a flexible balancing of four factors. Those factors are one, the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or for a nonprofit educational purpose. Two, the nature of the copyrighted work that is allegedly infringed. Three, the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the infringed work as a whole. And four the effect the use will have on the potential market for or value of the original copyrighted work. Jamie: The first factor assesses whether the use is transformative, as established in the Supreme Court case of Campbell versus Acuff Rose Music. Transformativeness occurs where the new work adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning or message right. Scott: And that has been the traditional test for transformativeness. But now the Warhol decision requires courts to ask, as part of examining transformativeness,