Chase Jarvis Chase Jarvis Inc., a Washington Corporation v. K2 Inc., a Delaware Corporation K-2 Corporation

486 F.3d 526, 82 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1711, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 9909
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedApril 30, 2007
Docket16-56190
StatusPublished
Cited by46 cases

This text of 486 F.3d 526 (Chase Jarvis Chase Jarvis Inc., a Washington Corporation v. K2 Inc., a Delaware Corporation K-2 Corporation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chase Jarvis Chase Jarvis Inc., a Washington Corporation v. K2 Inc., a Delaware Corporation K-2 Corporation, 486 F.3d 526, 82 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1711, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 9909 (9th Cir. 2007).

Opinion

FISHER, Circuit Judge.

Chase Jarvis is a professional photographer who created several thousand photographic slides over a three-year period for K2, Inc. (“K2”), a maker of outdoor sporting goods. Unfortunately, this relationship eventually soured. Jarvis sued K2, alleging that it infringed his copyrights in his photographic images, lost many of the slides that he delivered and repeatedly failed to credit him when it used his images. The district court agreed that K2 was liable under each of these theories and awarded damages to Jarvis. However, the district court found that 24 of Jarvis’ images — contained in four K2 collage advertisements that combined Jarvis’ images with other images and graphics — were not infringed because the ads were covered by the collective works privilege of 17 U.S.C. § 201(c). 1 Jarvis now appeals the district court’s damages awards and its ruling as to the collage ads’ privileged status.

We hold that the district court properly calculated damages. It employed reasonable estimates of the market value of the infringed images as well as the business lost by Jarvis because of the lost images and failures to credit him. We do not agree with the district court, however, that the 24 images in the collage ads were privileged under § 201(c). The collage ads were derivative rather than collective works because they transformed Jarvis’ original images into new promotional posters. 2 The collective works privilege therefore did not apply to the ads, and then-online display after K2’s term of use had expired infringed Jarvis’ copyrights in the *528 underlying images. Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s ruling as to § 201(c) and remand for determinations of willfulness, actual and statutory damages and attorney’s fees with respect to the collage ads.

I. Background

A. Factual History

Jarvis is a professional photographer who specializes in outdoor sports images. K2 is a corporation that sells outdoor sporting goods such as skis, snowboards, skates and bikes. Jarvis and K2 entered into five separate agreements from 1999 to 2002, pursuant to which Jarvis took photographs for K2 and sent it the resulting slides in exchange for compensation. Each delivery of slides was accompanied by a delivery memorandum that, among other things, stated that “[l]oss or damage of any image will result in a $1,500 fee per image, as set forth by industry standards.”

Three of the five agreements between Jarvis and K2 were oral. Of greater relevance here, two agreements were written by Jarvis and entered into, respectively, on October 6, 2000 (“2000 Agreement”) and December 13, 2001 (“2001 Agreement”). Both of these agreements authorized K2 to “publish images” provided by Jarvis in K2’s “brochures, print advertisements, trade show display booths, posters, and electronically for the web so as to market [its] business.” All uses of Jarvis’ images had to include an attribution credit. K2’s “photo use rights” in the 2000 Agreement images were to “extend through the 2001-02 ski year or one year from[the images’] delivery date,” while its rights in the 2001 Agreement images were to last “for the 2002-03 ski season, ending in May 2003.” 3 There was an integration clause in both agreements stating, “This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement of the parties as to the subject matter hereto.” Jarvis delivered 2,516 slides to K2 and received $10,000 under the 2000 Agreement, and delivered 1,210 slides and received $7,200 under the 2001 Agreement.

In total, Jarvis provided 4,147 slides to K2, the vast majority of them pursuant to the 2000 and 2001 Agreements. K2 lost 396 of these slides and hence was unable to return them to Jarvis. K2 also failed to provide a photo credit to Jarvis in 105 images that it used, and miscredited one of his images to another photographer. Finally, 82 of Jarvis’ images were used by K2 after the underlying licenses had expired or by third parties to whom K2 had improperly provided the images. Twenty-four of the 82 images were incorporated into four “collage” advertisements that were initially published as magazine inserts during the time period the 2001 Agreement authorized K2 to use the images. The ads combined edited versions of Jarvis’ images with other images, marketing graphics and promotional slogans. After the contractual term limit for using Jarvis’ images had expired, K2 scanned the collage ads and displayed them on its website.

B. Procedural History

Jarvis filed his action against K2 in June 2003. The district court granted partial summary judgment against K2 on Jarvis’ copyright infringement, breach of contract and conversion claims in September 2004. The court later bifurcated Jarvis’ claims, ordering the Lanham Act and damages issues to proceed to trial but staying the vicarious copyright infringement, breach of contract and conversion claims. Upon conclusion of a bench trial in March 2005, *529 the court entered comprehensive findings of fact and conclusions of law. Although the court ruled in Jams’ favor in many respects and awarded him damages, Jarvis takes issue with the court’s ruling as to the collective works privilege as well as its determination of damages.

The district court’s award of damages for the 396 unreturned slides totaled $199,000 ($500 each for the 395 unidentified slides and $1,500 for one slide identified as having been created for K2 Bike). Damages for the 105 failures to credit and one miscredit totaled $11,400, based on a rate of $50 per failure for online use, $200 per failure for print ads and $300 per failure for media use. And damages for 58 infringements of Jarvis’ copyrights totaled $40,107, based largely on a fair market value of $461 each for images used online. 4

The district court’s damages awards were premised on several legal and factual determinations, two of which are particularly relevant here. First, the court found that the 2000 and 2001 Agreements were fully integrated contracts, and that Jarvis’ delivery memos specifying a $1,500 liquidated damages amount for lost or damaged slides were simply proposed contract modifications that K2 never accepted. Second, the court ruled that K2’s collage ads — which contained 24 images that would otherwise have infringed Jarvis’ copyrights' — constituted collective works and thus were privileged under § 201(c). According to the court, the time limits for usage specified in the Agreements did not obviate the rights conferred by § 201(c), and the transfer of the ads from print to electronic form did not transform them into unprotected new works. Importantly, by finding the ads privileged under § 201(c), the court negated the effect of Jarvis’ registration of his copyrights in some of the 24 images in the collage ads before ICS’s alleged infringement. Otherwise, Jarvis could have elected statutory damages and potentially received attorney’s fees for those infringements.

Judgment was entered in May 2005, and Jarvis timely appealed.

II. Standard of Review

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486 F.3d 526, 82 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1711, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 9909, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chase-jarvis-chase-jarvis-inc-a-washington-corporation-v-k2-inc-a-ca9-2007.