Boehm v. Zimprich

68 F. Supp. 3d 969, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174330, 2014 WL 7217380
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Wisconsin
DecidedDecember 17, 2014
DocketNo. 14-cv-16-jdp
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 68 F. Supp. 3d 969 (Boehm v. Zimprich) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Boehm v. Zimprich, 68 F. Supp. 3d 969, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174330, 2014 WL 7217380 (W.D. Wis. 2014).

Opinion

OPINION & ORDER

JAMES D. PETERSON, District Judge.

Plaintiffs Scott Boehm and David Stluka are professional photographers who specialize in sports photos, which they license on an exclusive basis through agencies such as Getty Images. In this copyright infringement suit, they allege that defendants created photo prints and canvases of their photos 'without authorization, and that they sold these items through their sports memorabilia shops and kiosks. The Zimpriches and Legends of the Field admit to copying and selling plaintiffs’ photos. Sports Plus admits that it acquired at least one of plaintiffs’ photos from the Zimpriches and offered it for sale.1 The number of images used and the number of copies made and sold has not yet been established.

Two insurance companies have intervened to protect their interests: American Family Mutual Insurance Company (insurer of the Zimpriches) and Acuity (insurer of Sports Plus).

Now before the court are several motions for partial summary judgment. Plaintiffs have moved for summary judgment on two issues: (1) that Legends of the Field and the Zimpriches have infringed their copyrights, and (2) that the Zimp-riches’ infringement was willful. Sports Plus has moved for summary judgment that its infringement, if any, was not wili[973]*973ful, thus limiting its damages. American Family has moved for summary judgment that the Zimpriches’ policy does not afford coverage for the allegations in the complaint.

The court will grant plaintiffs’ motion. Legends of the Field does not genuinely dispute its infringement; it disputes only the number of photos it infringed. The Zimpriches attack the validity of plaintiffs’ copyrights and their registrations, but fail to offer any supporting evidence. Thus, infringement by the Zimpriches cannot be genuinely disputed. At least some of the Zimpriches’ infringement was willful: the “editorial” license under which the Zimp-riches acquired the photos from Getty did not authorize them to create commercial products such as prints and canvases. Although the Zimpriches contend that they never read the actual editorial license, the essential restrictions of the editorial license were apparent on the Getty website during the acquisition process. The court also rejects the Zimpriches’ assertion of an advice of counsel defense for their continued infringement during the course of this litigation.

The court will grant Sports Plus’s motion. Sports Plus did not make any infringing products; it acquired those products from the Zimpriches. Plaintiffs have adduced no evidence to sustain their burden to show that any infringement by Sports Plus would have been willful.

The court will deny American Family’s motion. The complaint alleges that the Zimpriches infringed plaintiffs’ copyrights in “advertising and marketing campaigns to promote their businesses and products,” Dkt. 33, ¶ 28, thus triggering coverage for advertising injury. Although the complaint alleges generally that defendants’ unauthorized use of plaintiffs’ work was “willful, intentional, and/or reckless,” intent is not an element of copyright infringement. The complaint alleges that some of the Zimpriches’ infringement involved a deliberate scheme to acquire editorial licenses under false pretenses, but the complaint also alleges that the Zimp-riches acquired some of plaintiffs’ photos with no license whatsoever. The complaint does not explain how the Zimpriches acquired copies of those photos, and thus the court will construe the complaint to include a claim for non-willful copyright infringement. The policy exclusion for intentional acts is therefore not applicable to those claims, and thus American Family has a duty to defend the Zimpriches.

UNDISPUTED FACTS

The following facts are material and, except where noted, undisputed.

Plaintiffs Scott Boehm and David Stluka are professional sports photographers, who work, primarily, NCAA, MLB, and NFL games. Plaintiffs have registered their copyrights to the photographs at issue in this suit, sometimes by means of the group registration process available 'for photographs.

Until 2012, the relevant period for this case, plaintiffs licensed their photos exclusively through Getty Images (U.S.), Inc. on a “rights-managed” (rather than a “royalty-free”) basis. The Getty Images website offered photography, including plaintiffs’ photos, under various license types. Each license type allowed different uses and contained different restrictions. Commercial licenses permitted the broadest use and had the highest fee. “Editorial-Newspaper” licenses were significantly less expensive than commercial licenses, but they did not permit the photos to be used to sell anything. The Getty Image Editorial-Newspaper licenses allowed the licensed photo to be used only on the “inside of a newspaper,” and they typically expired after a short time, such as a day or a week. The basics of the license type is provided [974]*974on the Getty Images website when the. photo is acquired. The full license is available on the website, and it is also provided in a confirming email after acquisition.

Defendants Dan and Ciara Zimprich own “On 2 the Field,” a sports memorabilia vendor with a store in Madison. The Zimpriches made and sold prints and photo canvases of approximately two dozen of plaintiffs’ photographs without authorization. To acquire high-resolution copies of plaintiffs’ photos, the Zimpriches established an online account with Getty Images and entered Editorial-Newspaper licenses for plaintiffs’ photos. The Zimpriches acknowledge that they received emails confirming the licenses, but they contend that they did not read the licensing agreements and that they were unaware of the restrictions on the use of the photos. The Zimp-riches also acquired copies of some of plaintiffs’ photos from sources other than Getty Images. The Zimpriches sold some of their finished products with plaintiffs’ photos to the other defendants and they displayed the rest in their, own store. They continued to offer for sale products with plaintiffs’ images for a year after this lawsuit began.

Defendant Legends of the Field sells sports memorabilia through its. retail stores. Legends of the Field admits that it displayed copies of at least three of plaintiffs’ photos; plaintiffs allege that Legends of the Field infringed six more. It appears that, like the Zimpriches, Legends of the Field entered non-commercial licenses to some of plaintiffs’ photos from Getty Images and offered them for sale in its stores. Legends of the Field challenges the admissibility of plaintiffs’ evidence of how Legends of the Field acquired plaintiffs’ photos, but that issue is not material here.

Defendant Sports Plus also sells sports memorabilia and it purchased at least one copy of a photo-in-suit from the Zimprich- ' es (Bueky Badger doing push-ups at a University of Wisconsin football game), which it displayed for sale in its store. Sports Plus’s owner, Paul Leister, contends that he did not know that the Zimp-riches would sell an unauthorized copy, and that Dan Zimprich informed him that he had paid a fee allowing him to create the reproductions.2 When Leister learned that the image was allegedly an infringement — through the filing of this lawsuit— Sports Plus removed the reproduction in its possession from display.

American Family Insurance provides business insurance to the Zimpriches.

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Bluebook (online)
68 F. Supp. 3d 969, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174330, 2014 WL 7217380, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/boehm-v-zimprich-wiwd-2014.