U.S. Court Of Appeals Overturns Lower Court Copyright Registration Decision

After many years, the Ninth Circuit finally entered a decision in the Alaska Stock, LLC v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company (HMH) case.  In Anchorage U.S. District Judge H. Russel Holland had originally tossed the federal lawsuit after finding that the photographs had been improperly registered with the Copyright Office.

Reversing the district court’s dismissal of Alaska Stock’s copyright infringement claim, the appeals court definitively held that Alaska Stock had “successfully registered the copyright both to its collections and to the individual images contained therein” despite the fact that the name of the photographer and title of each component work was not included in the registration.

Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote that the lower court’s strict adherence to a limited reading of the statue was “unjust” and found "The names of three authors followed by a statement 'and [number] others' suffices, as the letter from the [Copyright] Office to the trade association said. Circulars from the Office say the same thing. Alaska Stock complied with Copyright Office procedures."?



Kleinfeld added, "The livelihoods of photographers and stock agencies have long been founded on their compliance with the Register's reasonable interpretation of the statute. Their reliance upon a reasonable and longstanding administrative interpretation should be honored. Denying the fruits of reliance by citizens on a longstanding administrative practice reasonably construing a statute is unjust." 

The thirteen databases and one CD-ROM collection at issue contained between 500 and 6,000 individual photographs each. Each database or CD-ROM contained the work of between 32 and 106 photographers.



The court cited cases in the Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Circuits that held that “collective work registrations [are] sufficient,” but also recognized that “Houghton Mifflin’s position had prevailed in one published and several unpublished district court decisions” The circuit court did not agree with those decisions. It is unlikely that the Supreme Court would accept a further appeal by HMH since the Fourth Circuit has ruled similarly and no other circuit has ruled to the contrary.?

In conclusion, the Court stated, “We are not performing a mere verbal, abstract task when we construe the Copyright Act. We are affecting the fortunes of people, many of whose fortunes are small. The stock agencies through their trade association worked out what they should do to register images with the Register of Copyrights, the Copyright Office established a clear procedure and the stock agencies followed it. The Copyright Office has maintained its procedure for three decades, spanning multiple administrations.”

The original case will still have to be tried to determine damages.