{"id":229,"date":"2017-04-28T09:54:58","date_gmt":"2017-04-28T13:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/?p=229"},"modified":"2017-04-28T09:54:58","modified_gmt":"2017-04-28T13:54:58","slug":"just-because-you-own-a-copy-doesnt-mean-you-own-the-copyright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/?p=229","title":{"rendered":"Just Because You Own a Copy Doesn’t Mean You Own the Copyright"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Estate of Vivian Maier has sued<\/a>\u00a0Jeffrey Goldstein and his company Vivian Maier Prints, Inc. for copyright infringement. \u00a0Vivian Maier\u00a0was an American street photographer, who worked for about forty years as a nanny in Chicago’s North Shore, while pursuing photography during her spare time. \u00a0Chicago art collector Jeffrey Goldstein accumulated a significant quantity\u00a0of Maier’s work, includign 17,500 negatives, 2,000 prints, 30 homemade movies, and numerous slides. \u00a0Before selling his collection in 2014, Goldstein formed Vivian Maier Prints, Inc., to sell prints.<\/p>\n

On April 20, 2017, the Estate of Vivian Maier sued Goldstein for\u00a0“copyright infringement, trademark infringement, false designation of
\norigin, unfair competition, unfair trade practices, and cybersquatting under the Copyright Act, 17\u00a0U.S.C. \u00a7\u00a7101 et seq., the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. \u00a7\u00a71051 et seq., and the laws of the State of\u00a0Illinois, based on, among other acts, Defendants’ unlawful copying, distribution, sale, and public\u00a0exhibition of the Estate’s copyrighted works, Defendants’ use of the Estate’s registered mark\u00a0VIVIAN MAIER, and Defendants’ false portrayal of their activities as officially endorsed or\u00a0connected with Vivian Maier or her estate.”<\/p>\n

Goldstein may or may not have been aware of 17 USC\u00a0\u00a7102, whihc provides:<\/p>\n

Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied. Transfer of ownership of any material object, including the copy or phonorecord in which the work is first fixed, does not of itself convey any rights in the copyrighted work embodied in the object; nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This statute, which on some levels is intuitive, often leads to some surprising results. \u00a0Most of use understand and accept that buying a book doesn’t give the purchase the right to make a movie based upon\u00a0the purchased \u00a0book. \u00a0However, it is less intuitive that the purchaser of a painting cannot hang the picture in a public place (because of the public display right), or the purchaser of a movie on DVD cannot show the movie in public (private showing is not prohibited, and is impliedly licensed in any event). \u00a0Does he owner of negatives get to make prints of the negatives — the only real use for them? \u00a0That would be making a copy of the image, and is arguably an infringement.<\/p>\n

Given that Goldstein sold his collection nearly three years ago, and the copyright statute has just a three year statute of limitations, what does the \u00a0Estate hope to accomplish with the filing? \u00a0Well among other things, it may be a grab for whatever Maier materials Goldstein still has:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Perhaps getting back the materials that Goldstein accumulated is the ultimate goal. \u00a0The separation of copyright from the physical work works both ways: while the owner of the physical image can’t exploit the image without access to the copyright rights, the owner of the copyright rights in an image can’t exploit that copyright without access to the physical image.<\/p>\n

The Estate also complains about Goldstein using the name Vivian Maier in selling prints of Vivian Maier’s photographs. \u00a0The Estate obtained an assignment of Supplemental Registration No. 4057824 on VIVIAN MAIER from another collector of Vivian Maier images, John Maloof, and on March 29, 2017, applied for another\u00a0registration on VIVIAN MAIER (Application No.\u00a04057824). \u00a0Is is really infringement of the Estate’s right to call a VIVIAN MAIER print a VIVIAN MAIER print?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Estate of Vivian Maier has sued\u00a0Jeffrey Goldstein and his company Vivian Maier Prints, Inc. for copyright infringement. \u00a0Vivian Maier\u00a0was an American street photographer, who worked for about forty years as a nanny in Chicago’s North Shore, while pursuing photography … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copyright"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=229"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234,"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions\/234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}