Background information

The plaintiffs, Avi Reuveni and Amir Rivlin, uploaded photographs they had taken during a journey to Jerusalem to Flickr.com. The photographs were published under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. The defendant, Mapa Publishing, copied and used the photographs in a book, but, according to the plaintiff, without proper attribution. One of the photographs was also published on the defendant's website.

Case summary

[CC note: There is no English translation available at this time. The information provided here is drawn from information provided www.law.co.il/en/news/2011/01/18/israeli-court-enforces-a-creative-commons-license.] The main question was the sum of damages to be awarded and how it should be calculated. The court sided with the plaintiffs and ruled that the defendant violated the attribution requirements of the CC license. The court also ruled that a separate act of infringement is committed for each photo. The court stated that there is no justification for regarding all 15 photographs as one work of art, seeing as each photograph describes a different object, was taken at a different time, and by a different person (either of the two plaintiffs). The judge considered the fact that the plaintiffs are not professional photographers who earn their living from photography, and that the defendant removed the infringing books from circulation. However, the court did weigh against the defendants the fact that they are book publishers that are expected to comply with copyright laws more stringently than others.