Reiner v. Nishimori, 15-cv-00241 (M.D. Tenn)
A prominent photographer is appealing what some consider a textbook fair use case.
Originally, photographer TC Reiner sued Ryon Nishimori, a student, and the Trustees of Watkins College of Art, Design, & Film in Nashville, TN for copyright infringement. A Tennessee District Court granted the defendants a Motion for Summary Judgment. Reiner has now appealed the case.
Nishimori used a copyrighted photo for an assignment in his graphic design class. The project required students to choose a photograph from a professor-curated collection to create a mock advertisement. The professor had created the set of photographs by clipping them out of magazines and stock photo databases and scanning them onto her computer. The photo at issue, “Casablanca,” was included in the set. While the professor did not contact the company from which she obtained the stock photo, she did contact the Dean at Watkins and was assured that using the photo for her class would not infringe a copyright.
Nishimori edited the photo by removing the title, photographer name, and control number to make it presentable for the assignment. The photo was never used outside of the assignment to advertise or promote a company, the college, or the class. And, Watkins College further swore that it did not introduce “Casablanca” into any market for photographs or use the photograph for any commercial reason.
In their Motion for Summary Judgment, Nishimori and Watkins College raised several defenses including a claim that Reiner had transferred his rights in the image to the stock photo company and that the class assignment qualified for fair use. As codified, “the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies . . . for purposes such as . . . teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.” 17 U.S.C. Sec. 107.
After analyzing the four fair use factors against the purpose of using the photo and the actions of the Defendants, the District Court found that the student’s educational use of “Casablanca” was fair use. The court found that Watkins College “used the photograph in a nonprofit educational setting and did not profit from the photograph at all.” Because the student’s use of the photograph was found to be fair use, both the student and Watkins did not infringe any copyright. Further, Nishimori’s removal of copyright information from the photograph was found to be allowable under a DMCA claim because “it is undisputed he did not know or have reasonable grounds to know that removing Reiner’s name, the name of the photograph, or the copyright tracking number, would ‘induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement of the federal copyright laws'” (citing Gordon v. Nextel Comms. and Mullen Advert., Inc. 345 F.3d 922, 927 (6th Cir. 2003)).