To start out it was the Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony case that expanded the copyright protection law to photography back in 1884, just to give credit where the credit is due for other professional photographers. Andrew Paul Leonard had a case against Nutritional supplement marketer Stemtech Health Sciences for 92 unauthorized uses of his photo's throughout Stemtech's websites and other marketing franchises. Andrew later received $1.6 Million in copyright infringement and damages.

"While the award here was quite high, and perhaps surprising, we cannot say it lacked an evidentiary basis such that it 'shock[s] the judicial conscience"

"Sedlik arrived at a "benchmark" fair market value of $215,768 for the 92 unauthorized uses. But then he applied two multipliers to that number. He said that a "premium," or multiplier three to five times the benchmark figure, was warranted to account for the scarcity of Leonard's images." (Photo District News)

Granted I feel that $1.6 Million is an outrageous amount I did not realize that the market vale of all 92 photos was priced at $215,768. The courts took that amount and added a "premium", for the scarcity of the photos, this in turn made the cost of the photos to increase by 5 times. Then to top it off to reach that additional $0.6 million they had over sued to cover because this had effectively eliminated other opportunities Andrew might have had to license the images.

At this point I feel the Lawyer was reaching out to what ifs to get the extra money in their hands. Ultimately the jury did side with them, making Stemtech payout $1.6 million to Andrew. I feel that possibly 3 times the amount of money owed would have been more fair side. This would have covered the cost of not only buying the photos, but also breaking the copyright and then the scarcity of the photos, getting one multiplicative higher for each separate reasoning.

Do you think that when the company received that cease-and-desist letter from him if they had taken down all the photos then and used something else that he would not have gotten as much if anything at all? Also, when he reached out to the company before they were copyrighted should the company have taken him more serious and maybe buy the photos directly then and this would have stopped it in the tracks, or do you think the company felt it was just one guy and he was not important enough to take serious so they just blew him off?

Next question, In addition to these types of law suits, are the class action law suits.What benefits are there to the individuals involved in class action lawsuits?Often times it will be a very small amount given to them, and often it is only the lawyers that really win.

References:

Photo District News, David Walker, "Appeals Court Upholds $1.6 Million Infringement Verdict", August 26^th, 2016, can be found at, https://pdnonline.com/photography-business/copyright-law/appeals-court-upholds-1-6-million-infringement-verdict/

Photo Attorney, Carolyn Wright, "Photographer Awarded $1.6 Million Dollars in Copyright Infringement Lawsuit", can be found at, https://www.photoattorney.com/photographer-awarded-16-million-dollars-copyright-infringement-action/

The Copyright Zone, can be found at, http://thecopyrightzone.com/?p=1131

Legal Information Institute, can be found at, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/111/53