Photographer Sues Getty Over His Photos, But Discovers He Doesn’t Own the Copyright

A photographer accused Getty Images of illegally licensing his photographs, only to learn that he never owned the copyrights to them.

A copyright infringement lawsuit brought by a professional photographer against Getty Images was dismissed by a New York district court last month, after a court found that he had already transferred those rights to his former employer.

According to a report by Vital Law, the photographer previously worked as a freelancer before becoming a staff photographer for a French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP). During his work with AFP, he provided more than 40,000 photographs to the agency. The photographer signed a series of employment contracts with AFP when he moved into his staff role, and those agreements included language transferring the copyrights in his photographs to AFP. Getty Images later entered into a licensing agreement with AFP allowing it to offer AFP photographs for licensing for their joint benefit.

Meanwhile, while still working for AFP, the photographer began registering copyrights with the U.S. Copyright Office for 9,953 of his images, including photographs he had taken as a freelancer up until the day before he signed his first AFP employment contract.

Vital Law reports that, in 2023, after the photographer’s relationship with AFP had ended, he discovered that Getty Images was offering some of his photographs for licensing on its website. He notified Getty that he believed he owned the copyrights to the images, but the company continued to offer them for licensing. The photographer subsequently sued Getty, claiming that the company had infringed his copyrights by continuing to license his photographs for a two-month period after receiving his notice.

But Getty moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the photographer had assigned the copyrights in his photographs to AFP and that Getty had a licensing agreement with AFP that allowed it to offer the images for licensing. The court agreed that the photographer had assigned the copyrights to AFP under his employment agreements, meaning he could not establish a copyright claim against Getty. Because Getty’s agreement with AFP permitted it to license the photographs, the court concluded that the photographer’s complaint failed to state a claim for relief.

The Photographer’s Interpretation of His Contract

The photographer acknowledged that he had signed an employment contract with AFP and that the agreement transferred the copyrights to photographs he took for the agency. The contracts contained different versions of language stating that the agreement “operates as a complete assignment of any and all Copyrights… (whether taken by [the photographer] for AFP in the future or in the past).”

However, the photographer argued that the wording of the agreement suggested the transfer of copyright was only temporary. He based this argument on the wording “[t]his agreement operates,” which he claimed placed a time limit on the “broad assignment” of his copyrights. The court rejected this interpretation, finding that it did not match the plain meaning of the contract.

The photographer also argued that his employment contract with AFP should not be legally binding because he did not fully understand what he was signing. The court rejected this argument, noting that he had the “Local Employment Contract” in his possession for 29 days before signing it, as well as a similar “Thailand Employment Agreement.” The photographer acknowledged that he had not read either document “word for word” before signing. The court said that people are generally responsible for reading a contract before signing it, and the photographer had not shown any circumstances that would excuse him from that responsibility. The court therefore found that he was bound by the AFP employment contract.

Image creditsHeader photo licensed via Depositphotos.