| Life After Death |
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10 March 2009 For those of you who still inexplicably refuse to register your work, here’s yet another often overlooked reason for doing so. Section 302 (a) of the Copyright Law sets forth the term of a registration for works created after January 1, 1978. That term is “the life of the author and 70 years after the author’s death”. In plain, blunt English that means that infringements occurring after a photographer has died can be prosecuted by his/her estate and/or spouse and/ or heirs and monies recovered. In February of 2009, on behalf of Stuart’s widow, I filed two (unrelated) lawsuits in the United States (Federal) District Court for the Southern District of New York entitled: “Estate of Stuart M. Gross v. CBS Broadcasting” (Judge Marrero) 09 CIV 1533 and “Estate of Stuart M. Gross v. Daily News, L.P. (New York Daily News)” (Judge Sullivan) 09 CIV 1532. Each case alleges that the copyright registration for the photos taken by Mr. Gross in 1987 of child murder victim Lisa Steinberg had been infringed after Stuart’s untimely death from cancer. Each defendant ran the registered images without the license or consent of either Mr. Gross or his widow even though each had procured licenses from him on prior occasions. That Stuart had created these iconic images which had been licensed over two decades to among others: Nightline, 20/20, ABC Television, Life Magazine, BBC and these very defendants – CBS and The New York Daily News – was well known and a matter of public record. Licenses to use the images were requested many times by many media companies over a period in excess of twenty years. Additionally, numerous claims and litigations alleging copyright infringement were brought between 1987 right up to Stuart’s death in 2007. Substantial sums were contributed to child abuse charities by Stuart out of the licensing revenues. I discovered the above infringements while researching a regular column I write with Jack Reznicki entitled “The Copyright Zone”, which appears in Photoshop User Magazine. The column, which will be appearing in the upcoming issue, discusses the importance of registering everything you shoot because you never know which images might prove to be valuable. We remind you that your registrations can form a valuable portion of your estate and can permit those you leave behind to collect monies justly due together with statutory damages and attorneys’ fees. If, of course, you are looking for a reason for your spouse, children or significant other to curse you even after you’re gone, then by all means do not register your images. Dated: March 10, 2009 -- Edward C. Greenberg, P.C. 570 Lexington Avenue 17th Floor New York, NY 10022 (212) 697-8777 This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |
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