Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Intellectual Property Law Blogs -> Cogito Ergo Teneo; an intellectual property blawg

Intellectual Property Law

: Cogito Ergo Teneo; an intellectual property blawg

04/30/07 Copyright Law: Chase Jarvis

By Sean Fowler

Chase Jarvis v. K2, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 05-35609 (April 30, 2007):

Issue:
Jarvis, of Chase Jarvis, Inc., was a freelance photographer whose photographs were often used in k2 ads. When the working relationship soured, Jarvis revoked K2's right to reuse his works. K2 created an advertisement thereafter that was a collage of pictures with various K2 trademarks and logos strategically placed throughout. In the collage were several of Jarvis' pictures. Jarvis sued for multiple counts of copyright infringement, lost at the trial court, and appealed.

Pertinent Issue of Copyright Law:
1) Does a collage count as a collective work or a derivative work for the purposes of copyright law?

Conclusion:
In this case, said the court, it counted as a derivative work. K2 was not simply reprinting a composition that included Jarvis' work, but it had created a collage that prominently featured Jarvis' work and that used other photographs from other photographers as well as a means to buttress and highlight Jarvis' pictures. The court said, in relevant part: "The changes to which K2 subjected Jarvis' images are examples of the 'recast[ing], transform[ing], or adapt[ing]' and 'editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications' that define derivative works. ... Jarvis delivered the images to K2 in one form, and they were subsequently used in the collage ads in a quite different (though still recognizable) form. The ads did not simply compile or collect Jarvis' images, but rather altered them in various ways and fused them with other images and artistic elements into new works that were based on -- i.e., derivative of -- Jarvis' original images." The court reversed the lower court's finding that the advertisement was protected from Jarvis' suit as a collective work.

Full post as published by Cogito Ergo Teneo; an intellectual property blawg on May 20, 2007 (boomark / email).