Richard Bell, an attorney-photographer who has filed and settled many infringement lawsuits, has learned that a loss at trial can be particularly expensive when a court ordered him to pay a defendant’s fees. READ MORE

A federal jury in Indianapolis found that retired attorney Richard Bell does not own the copyright to a photograph of the Indianapolis skyline — an image at the heart of dozens of infringement lawsuits Bell has filed over the years. READ MORE

While determining copyright fair use may seem as easy as adding up the scores of the four fair use factors, the reality is not so simple. Fair use requires complex and nuanced judgments, not simplistic arithmetic. READ MORE

A federal judge in New York recently held that online publishers who embed tweets that include copyrighted photographs violate the rights holder’s public display right, even if they do not copy or store the photo on their servers. That decision has received a lot of publicity. But other courts view the issue differently. READ MORE

Ownership is unique under the Copyright Act — that’s the argument a federal court made in throwing out an infringement action filed by a copyright owner who created the work in question but failed to retain a financial interest in it. READ MORE