Is copyright in a 1980s Michael Jordan photo infringed by the Jumpman logo?

In the run up to the 1984 Olympic Games, Jacobus Rentmeester took various photographs of Michael Jordan for LIFE magazine. The iconic image which he ultimately produced involved a jump which Rentmeester asked Jordan against a plain skyline with freshly cut grass. The photograph that he took is below.

What happened? 

According to Rentmeester's complaint, following publication of his photograph in LIFE magazine, Nike paid Rentmeester $150 for temporary use of two 35mm colour transparencies. The invoice stated that this was “for slide presentation only, no layouts or any other duplication”.

Rentmeester alleges that following receipt of the transparencies, the below photograph was produced and used by Nike as part of an advertising campaign for Air Jordan shoes:

Mr Rentmeester apparently complained about Nike's use of his photograph to create the above image and in 1985 he reached a settlement with Nike whereby, in return for $15,000, he agreed that Nike could use the photograph on posters, billboards etc in North America only for two years.

Rentmeester is now complaining that Nike continued to use the photograph beyond both the term and the territorial restrictions imposed by the 1985 agreement. Significantly, Rentmeester is claiming that Nike's use includes the famous Jumpman logo.  For those unfamiliar with the logo, the complaint includes the following handy comparison of the silhouette of Michael Jordan in the Rentmeester photograph (left) with the Jumpman logo (right).

The complaint goes into a lot of detail regarding the creative decisions that Rentmeester made when creating the photograph:

"Mr. Rentmeester wanted to maximize visual attention on an isolated figure of Mr. Jordan, and so the photograph needed to be taken outside, with a background of sky rather than the interior of an auditorium. Mr. Jordan would be depicted in away to express his tremendous athletic ability: he would leap through the sky and appear to soar elegantly. Mr. Rentmeester created the pose, inspired by a ballet technique known as a “grand jeté,” a long horizontal jump during which a dancer performs splits in mid-air.  The pose, while conceived to make it appear that Mr. Jordan was in the process of a dunk, was not reflective of Mr. Jordan’s natural jump or his dunking style.

Mr. Rentmeester further planned that Mr. Jordan would leap with his left leg forward and his right leg behind, and his left hand extended while holding the basketball, so that the basketball would appear to be perched on top of his fingertips, his body open and facing the camera, his limbs extended outward, and his right hand open, showing his fingers."

Given that level of input into the creative process, following Infopaq and Painer, the photograph would be protected in the EU as Rentmeester's own intellectual creation.  Presumably the position is the same in the USA.

Why now? 

The cause of action arose in 1987 – when the licence expired (or possibly sooner if Nike used the photograph/Jumpman logo outside of North America before then). So, why has Rentmeester waited?

The cause of the delay is anyone’s guess – lack of money, time or inclination to do anything about it in the late 1980s, perhaps. However, the reason why he is pursuing the claim now is thanks to Raging Bull, or more precisely, the US Supreme Court’s decision in Petrella v MGM which was decided in May 2014.

The US Supreme Court found that because the US Copyright Act limits retrospective relief to three years before the date of claim, laches does not apply.  Laches is the equitable doctrine that states you cannot pursue a claim if you have unreasonably delayed in bringing a claim - 30 years would likely have constituted an 'unreasonable delay'.   Moreover, the court decided that ‘when a defendant commits successive violations, the statute of limitations runs separately from each violation.’ In other words, every time that Raging Bull is distributed (or Nike sells a pair of Jumpman branded goods) a new three year limitation period starts to run.

It is worth noting that it follows from this that there is no benefit to Mr Rentmeester in waiting until now. If he had pursued Nike sooner, he could have recovered losses based on past infringment and obtained a licence covering future use. As it is, the best Mr Rentmeester can expect is damages for the three years prior to issuing his claim and a licence for use going forward.

Does Rentmeester have a claim? 

At first glance, it is easy to see why many people online are dismissing this as another example of IP law gone crazy.   “It’s Michael Jordan who posed not the photographer” is typical of the general sentiment behind these posts.  However, I’m not sure it is quite so simple.  The pose in the photograph is not a natural one, it was deliberately selected by Mr Rentmeester (together with the plain background which makes the pose stand out even more).  Further, although I am no expert(!) it does not appear that Michael Jordan ever employed this balletic pose when actually playing basketball.  Further, Nike obviously thought that it required a licence when it settled with Mr Rentmeester in 1985.

Should Rentmeester's rights in the photograph extend to the logo? 

The copy of the Rentmeester photograph does appear to have been used since 1987 but it is the translation of the Nike photograph into the Jumpman logo which is where the money (and hence the battleground) lies.  Is this translation into a logo a ‘transformative use’?  Prior to Cariou and Prince, the answer would have been a definite "no".  But now the situation is less clear.  Indeed there is an argument that if Cariou lost to Prince, surely it follows that Rentmeester must lose to Nike.

Does it make a difference if the ‘fair use’ is not to create another artwork but to create a global brand?  Surely this sort of commercial use is sufficiently far from being an art work for transformative use to not apply?  We shall see...

This promises to be a very interesting case and one which I look forward to following – assuming it doesn’t settle…

Postscript: Michael Jordan and the wonderful world of IP 

Whilst researching this post, I found out that Michael Jordan is no stranger to IP litigation. He has had a long running dispute with a Chinese sportswear company, Qiaodan (the transliteration of “Jordan” in Chinese).

Jordan claimed that Qiaodan mislead customers into believing that he has authorised the use of his name (and his children’s names – which Qiaodan has applied to register as Chinese trade marks). Meanwhile Qiaodan sued Michael Jordan for $8million in retaliation claiming that his allegations had prevented the company from pursuing an IPO.

Interestingly, Qiaodan chose to use a logo which was more akin to Jordan’s traditional basketball movements (see below).

You can read Rentmeester’s complaint here.   Note: I could not find Nike’s response online - if anyone has a copy (or knows when it will be filed) please let me know.

Sources: NBA and Financial Times

Exploring "Orderly Form" Requirements for U.S. Copyright Registrations

Again underscoring the importance of not just obtaining copyright registrations, but doing so correctly, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently explored the "orderly form" requirement for copyright registrations covering collections of works.

The plaintiff, sculptor Quincy Neri, sued the defendants for copyright infringement after they posted photographs online that included her sculpture.  The parties engaged in a joint project remodeling a home by installing a vaulted ceiling and Neri's glass sculpture.  The architecture company, a named defendant in the case, took photographs documenting the progress of the space, and two of these photos included Neri's sculpture.  The photos were shared online by the company as well as the home owner.  Based on these facts, Neri then sued the architectural company, the home owner, and others for copyright infringement.

Under U.S. copyright law, a copyright arises when an original work of authorship becomes fixed in a tangible medium, however litigation to enforce a copyright requires that the plaintiff have obtained a copyright registration.  In this case, Neri asserted that she had a copyright registration for the sculpture at issue, but the registration covered multiple works in a collection.  The district court found the copyright invalid on this basis and dismissed the case.  On appeal, the Seventh Circuit held otherwise.

To obtain her copyright registration, Neri submitted a booklet of works as well as a selection of numbered photographs to the U.S. Copyright Office claiming that the works were part of a single collection called "Artwork of Q."  Defendants attacked the validity of the copyright registration and alternatively alleged that the registration did not in fact cover the sculpture that appeared in the remodel photographs.  Relying upon the administrative rules governing copyright registration of a collection, the Seventh Circuit held that the case been wrongly dismissed since the lower court judge had not actually evaluated the materials submitted to the copyright office, and instead had only reviewed deposition testimony of their nature.  Neither party had placed the deposit materials for the copyright registration on the record.  Neri thus benefited from the registration's entitlement to the presumption of validity.  The court, left grappling with the "orderly form" requirement for materials submitted for copyright registration of a collection concluded, "the key question must be whether the submission is organized well enough to permit users and courts to pin down the 'information' on which copyright enforcement depends."  And further, "Any organization that enables a court to associate a work underlying the suit with a work covered by a registration ought to do the trick."  

Ultimately, the case was remanded with instructions for the district court to reconsider its conclusions on the validity of the copyright registration and further to consider other previously overlooked issues such as joint authorship of the sculpture because the home owner and architectural company may have made creative contributions in determining the color and arrangement of the sixty glass pieces that comprised the finished sculpture.  The court further opined that sharing the pictures online may constitute fair use.

The court's full opinion may be accessed here.

Russia's IPC to Hear Lady in Blue Appeal

Russia’s specialized Intellectual Property Court (IPC), which just became operational in July 2013, will be hearing an appeal regarding the appearance of a famous painting in fashion designs.

Iya Yots, a fashion designer from St. Petersburg, was sued by The State Hermitage Museum over use of an image of Thomas Gainsborough’s painting, “Portrait of a Lady in Blue” in her works.

The IPC may hear cases as both a court of first instance, or as a supreme court of appeals. Yots appeals this case after the Sixteenth Commercial Court of Appeals affirmed an unfavorable decision by the Commercial Court of the Stavropol Territory prohibiting her from using the image without the Museum’s permission.

"Prominence Invites Creative Comment"

Warner Bros, maker of the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, very recently defeated a trademark infringement lawsuit brought by software company, Fortres Grand.  The gravamen of the case was the movie's depiction of a fictional software product called Clean Slate that allowed characters to erase records of their criminal past.  As it would happen, Fortres Grand is the real-life maker of a software product also called Clean Slate.  Fortres Grand filed the lawsuit alleging that the movie's use of the Clean Slate name raised a likelihood of consumer confusion, the judge however disagreed, holding that consumer confusion was unlikely, and further that the movie's use of the name was fair use.

Several months earlier another film, Flight, was involved in a trademark squabble for its depiction of real-life brands without approval of the owners.  In Flight, a pilot's substance abuse problems were portrayed by using many real alcoholic beverage brands such as Budweiser, resulting in a request by Anheuser-Busch InBev, owner of the Budweiser mark, that its brand names be obscured in the film.

These two disputes seem to present a mirror-image of each other.  One in which a fictional work accidentally uses the name of a real brand, and one in which a fictional work portrays a real brand in a manner that the owner of the trademark finds objectionable.  These scenarios may fuel allegations of trademark infringement, tarnishment, false association, or product defamation, but such claims are likely to fail due to the First Amendment rights of filmmakers.  Distilled, the issue is whether trademark law gives brand owners the ability to censor creative works, and the answer is most often no.  When weighed against each other, the property right in a trademark by and large does not prevail over the First Amendment protection of artistic expression.

I can't help but wonder what it is about film that causes brand owners to object so readily, even when their trademark-related claims are weak.  Perhaps licensing and product placement have conditioned viewers to accept, or assume, that brands appear in films at the will of the brand owner.  Does this situation thus make viewers experience brands in films in a way that is more "real," (or perhaps more confusing)?

Pondering this question, I set about researching trademark disputes related to literary works, wondering when, if ever, trademark owners brought similar claims related to the content of books.  After turning over many stones, I identified many disputes related to book titles, yet was unable to find any cases truly challenging use of brands in books.  The closest case I could find related to a series of books about the "Pee Wee Scouts."  Doubleday, publisher of the books, was sued in federal court in New York for allegedly infringing the trademarks of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.  Citing the title "Pee Wee Scouts" as well as certain content of the books (such as scouts using handbooks or attending national conventions), plaintiffs alleged that consumers would be confused into thinking the books were created or sponsored by plaintiffs.  The court disagreed, dismissing the case on summary judgment, a result that was resoundingly affirmed on appeal.

In a 2006 interview with the Paris Review, Stephen King spoke candidly on his reasons for very frequently using brand names in his works, even when he received literary (non-trademark related) criticism for doing so.  His answer focused heavily on creating accurate cultural references, on enhancing the image a reader may perceive while reading the book (think Jack Torrance taking all that Excedrin in The Shining).  Still these reasons seem just as viable in the context of film.  Indeed, there should be no difference.  As the court provided in the Pee Wee Scouts case, "It is at once apparent, when we deal with the content of a book or motion picture, that we deal with no ordinary subject in commerce. . . . Their importance as an organ of public opinion is not lessened by the fact that they are designed to entertain as well as to inform; . . . books and motion pictures are a constitutionally protected form of expression notwithstanding that their production, distribution and exhibition is a large-scale business conducted for private profit."  Girl Scouts of the United States v. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 808 F. Supp. 1112, 1120 (S.D.N.Y. 1992) (internal citations and quotations omitted).



Hat tip to Bob Cumbow and the World Trademark Review.

A Dictionary of Intellectual Property Law (A review)

Peter Groves recently* published the Dictionary of Intellectual Property Law. This book is an extremely useful compendium of all the mysterious IP terms which are commonly used by lawyers, in contracts, in judgments and in government consultations in the UK, Europe and USA. Each concept has a pithy description including cross references to other terms where this would be useful.

The dictionary even covers things you might not, at first glance, associate with IP law such as AdWords and zoetropes. Naturally, the IPKat gets a special mention!

 If you want a second opinion here are some of the (publisher selected) comments on the book when it was first published:

‘Confused between community patent review and community patents? Lost in a thicket of dockets, rocket or otherwise? Let Peter Groves’ Dictionary of Intellectual Property Law be your guide. Filling almost 500 often lighthearted, occasionally acerbic, but invariably fact-packed pages, the book takes you from the ActionAid Chip and the Air Pirates case through BIRPI, Cognating, Dockets, Evergreening; Jepson, Pedrick’s cat and Simkins; PHOSITA, Trundlehumpers, the verb “to Uncopyright” and X-Patents, all the way to Zwart maken. Essential reading.’ – David Musker, Partner, RGC Jenkins & Co.

 ‘Do not be put off by the word “dictionary”. This is a fascinating, witty and erudite little volume, packed with interesting and useful information on the whole gamut of intellectual property. It leaves one (this one anyway) hungering for more and wanting to delve more deeply into fields that have nothing to do with earning one’s daily bread.’ – Tony McStea, Senior Patent Attorney, Global Patents, Givaudan Schweiz AG

If you bought the book and it’s missing a key term or the definition hasn't helped to untangle to confusion, fear not. New definitions are suggested and refined on the IP Dictionary blawg (www.dictionaryofiplaw.blogspot.co.uk) where users can even suggest new terms for inclusion in the next edition.

This book should be of use for everyone interested in the world of IP law from the aspiring student, to the lawyer. It is written so clearly and comprehensively that it is hopefully also useful for artists seeking to better understand and enforce their rights.

The paperback edition is available online for around £20. The author, Peter Groves, amongst many other things, writes for the Ipso Jure blog (www.ipsojure.co.uk).

 *OK, so not that recently, Feb 2011. But the paperback edition is much more recent!