The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reinstated copyright infringement claims by sports photographers against commercial users of their photographs, finding that the licenses that the photographers had granted to one of those users did not permit it to grant a sublicense to the other to use those photographs for free.
Spinelli, et al. v. National Football League, et al.,
Case No. 17-cv-0673 (2d Cir. Sept. 11, 2018) (Lynch, J).
The plaintiffs are sports photographers who take photos of NFL events. The defendants are the NFL, its various clubs and its photo store, as well as the Associated Press (AP), which served as the NFL’s exclusive licensing agent from 2009 to the present. In order to gain access to photograph NFL events (where NFL trademarks are inevitably displayed), the plaintiffs entered into “contributor agreements” with the AP, which granted the AP broad rights to use and sell their photos. In return, the AP was required to pay a royalty to the plaintiffs consisting of a percentage of the per-image price on sales of the photos.
The AP’s 2009 agreement with the NFL granted the NFL free access to all photos owned by the AP but required the NFL to pay for any “contributor photos,” which included the plaintiffs’ photos. In 2012, without the consent of the plaintiffs, the NFL and the AP negotiated a new contract wherein the NFL had unfettered free access to all “contributor photos.”
See the full article in the National Law Review (
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/photographers-claims-against-nfl-score-touchdown )
Also see
AP and NFL Extend Exclusive Licensing Deal.