A new copyright infringement suit greeted the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico on Monday. The case is Sixto Nuñez v. Actitud Corp, 3:11-cv-01578 and is before Judge Fuste. The plaintiff claims to be a professional model photographer whose work has been published in several publications.
According to the complaint, Actitud published several advertisements in which it used, without authorization, photographs taken by plaintiff and duly registered before the Copyright Office. Plaintiff also alleges that Actitud published the pictures in social media sites such as MySpace.
It will be interesting to see if the pictures were wholly owned by plaintiff, or if they were licensed to a Getty-Images type company, who then sold a license to defendant (or not). Below are two of the exhibits in the complaint and the complaint itself.
Work owned by plaintiff, infringed by defendant
Bonus question: Would the people in the ad be able to sue under a right of publicity claim? Discuss!
The ad placed by defendant
