Everett Collection Ruling Reversed

New York, NY, May 14, 2009 --(PR.com)-- On April 7, 2009 the Honorable Judge McMahon of the United States District Court in the Southern District of New York reconsidered its December 9, 2008 Order granting summary judgment in favor of Michael Grecco Photography Inc. in its copyright claim against the entertainment film archive, the Everett Collection, based on the website display of a series of publicity photographs commissioned by USA Networks. The court found issues of fact existed as to whether Grecco actually maintained any rights to the publicity stills commissioned by the studios.

Grecco commenced a lawsuit against The Everett Collection in 2007, claiming Everett Collection infringed its copyright in 23 publicity stills when it displayed copies on its website, everettcollection.com, and made them available for editorial use. Everett Collection requested that the court dismiss the complaint in its entirety as Grecco assigned all rights under copyright to the movie studios and only retained copyright for portfolio and self promotion. (Most studios retain full copyright). The Court initially determined that issues of fact regarding most of the publicity stills precluded dismissing the case on summary judgment prior to full discovery. However, without request, the Court found Everett Collection liable for copyright infringement on one set of publicity handouts from the television movie “Frankenstein” based on boilerplate “Terms and Conditions” on the back of Grecco’s invoice that stated the terms of all licenses were for a year. The court made this decision prior to the completion of discovery, without the benefit of all the relevant facts on hand, such as industry practice regarding publicity photographs and the relationship between the photographer and the studio which commissioned the photo shoot.

Everett addressed these issues in its motion to reconsider, which explained the information adduced during discovery; namely, that the networks and Mr. Grecco himself believed the studios had the rights to the Images for longer than a year. The Court found that Grecco’s testimony contradicted the language in his form contract which rendered the contract ambiguous.

The Everett Collection is now presented with the opportunity to reargue its position that Michael Grecco Photography, Inc. does not own the exclusive rights to the photographs taken for USA Networks and that its decades old service of offering publishers and the media copies of publicity stills for editorial use is non-infringing.

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