Appeals Court Vacates Greenberg Decision
From Photo District News:
After years of litigation, Jerry Greenberg’s $400,000 judgment for willful copyright infringement against National Geographic Society has been vacated.The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed its own infringement verdict and vacated the jury award on June 13, explaining that the Supreme Court’s 2001 ruling in Tasini v. New York Times put the case in a new light that required the reversal.
Greenberg sued NGS in 1997 for infringement because the publisher used his images in a CD-ROM compilation of all back issues of National Geographic magazine. NGS argued all along that the compilation, called The Complete National Geographic, was a revision of its magazines. Under copyright law, publishers aren’t required to get permission from contributors for revisions of existing works.