In both cases, the district courts agreed with the copy shop and found that no copyright infringement or violation of the CC license had occurred. For additional details on the court cases, see the Additional Resources section at the end of this chapter.
Philpot vs. Media Research Center
The third case, Philpot vs. Media Research Center, Inc.,[1] involved Larry Philpot, who voluntarily shared two photographs on Wikimedia under a Creative Commons license. Philpot complained that Media Research Center (MRC) had infringed his copyrights when it published his photographs in articles without attribution.
Following discovery (the phase of litigation during which factual evidence is gathered), MRC filed a motion for a summary judgment asking the court to find that it had not infringed Philpot’s copyrights because it used the photos for purposes of news and commentary, and those uses constitute fair use under U. S. copyright law.
In its decision granting the motion for summary judgment, the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia rejected Philpot’s argument that a “meeting of the minds” had to occur before the CC license used by Philpot applied.
The district court ultimately found that MRC’s uses of the two photographs constituted fair use under U. S. copyright law, and as a result MRC had not violated Philpot’s copyrights. The court concluded that because fair use applied, attribution under the CC license was not required, and so MRC had not infringed Philpot’s copyrights. Compliance with the license had not been violated because a copyright license does not apply where fair use applies.
Fair use eliminates the need to rely on or comply with a CC license. This is the core design of all CC licenses—CC licenses grant permission when permission is required under copyright law. They communicate the licensor’s intention to grant permission where permission is needed. And CC licenses are designed to be effective and enforceable without necessarily meeting the requirements of a contract. The law of contracts or obligations varies around the world, and there are some legal systems that may treat CC licenses as enforceable under the law of obligations. This court correctly determined that under U. S. law the licenses effectively grant permission without needing to meet the formal requirements of a contract because the intention to grant permission is all that is needed.
NOTE
- ↑ 3The official name of the court case is “Larry Philpot v Media Research Center Inc., U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Case 1:17-cv-822.”
