Background information

A professional photographer posted CC BY-licensed images on Wikimedia Commons. Two of those images were reused without attribution by the Media Research Center. The photographer sued for copyright infringement in district court in Virginia.

Case summary

The defendant filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing (1) that the photographer waived his right to sue for infringement by applying a CC license to the images; (2) their usage qualified as fair use under copyright law, and (3) their usage was protected by the First Amendment. In 2018, the district court granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment on the basis of fair use. Notably, the court did not accept the defendant’s argument that the photographer waived his right to sue for copyright infringement by applying the license.