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CBS Sues Man For Copyright Over Screenshots of 59-year-old TV Show (arstechnica.com)
CBS has sued a photographer for copyright infringement for publishing a still image from a 59-year-old television show. From a report: The lawsuit against New York photojournalist Jon Tannen, filed on Friday, is essentially a retaliatory strike. Tannen sued CBS Interactive in February, claiming that the online division of CBS had used two of his photographs without permission. Now, CBS has sued Tannen back, claiming that he "hypocritically" used CBS' intellectual property "while simultaneously bringing suit against Plaintiff's sister company, CBS Interactive Inc., claiming it had violated his own copyright." "Without any license or authorization from Plaintiff, Defendant has copied and published via social media platforms images copied from the Dooley Surrenders episode of GUNSMOKE," write CBS lawyers. CBS is asking for $150,000 in damages for willful infringement.
"So if you write a book and it doesn't get published by any of the publishers you send it to, they can just wait 20 years and print your book for free?"
Copyright in the US doesn't work that way, as long as you follow the Rules. One is providing a copy for Registration to the US Copyright Office. This is ironclad. Copyright is automatically granted on creation by Law, but Statutory Damages, that is, Damages awarded above and beyond potential Monetary Damages, usually only applies to Registered Works. Lawyers generally won't bother representing non-Registered works.
Publishing in its entirety without permission is very much against the Rules, something that both Twain and Dickens railed against.
But another Rule applies to Fair Use, and this is evolving. Fair Use for Academic reasons, that is in textbooks or Research papers, is generally allowed, as is Fair Use in commentary; that is, a Still from a TV Show in a larger Work describing Acting or Lighting technique is OK, and in fact, this is also protected by Copyright.
What is a big Nono is distributing that entire TV Show for profit without permission. This is generally considered Piracy, and quite rightly.
Without seeing the full context of the works in question, a case for Fair Use is nothing that we can determine for ourselves. Frankly, Tannen seems to have an excellent case, but not a $150,000 case.
Maybe a $60 each infringement case.
CBS has no case at all, since Tannen apparently in context took full advantage of Fair Use, placing the Still in context of a larger work, that is, a defense of Fair Use itself.
BTW, Dillon was a Murderer, Doc was a Drunk, and Miss Kitty was a Publican/Whoremaster. CBS should not be holding them up as something that they are proud of. Festus... he was an OK dude.
No, because copyright is governed by international agreements. The shortest they can go is fifty years, under the Berne convention - any less than that would result in the government being sued in international court, and failure to abide by the treaty would result in expulsion from the WTO with devastating economic consequences. For countries in Europe, it's seventy years under the Copyright Duration Directive, or seventy years after the death of the author for works which have an individual individual author