Curry v. Audax

Description

Case summary

BACKROUND

Adam Curry, a former MTV VJ and one of the pioneers of podcasting, published some photos from a family vacation onto his Flickr account under a BY-NC-SA license.

A Dutch tabloid reprinted some of the photos in a feature on his daughter.

Curry sued the tabloid for endangerment for publishing private information about his family and for copyright violation over the improper user of his Flickr photos.

RESULT

In March 2006, the Dutch court dismissed the endangerment claim but ruled in Curry's favor over the copyright claim.

The court held that Curry owned the copyright of the photos and that the tabloid violated the NonCommercial term of the CC license by publishing the photos without seeking Curry's separate permission.

The court enjoined the tabloid from publishing the photos and threatened them with a per photo fine if they violated the license terms again.

Several years later, a different tabloid published some of Curry's CC-licensed photos in an article about him, but the parties settled outside of court.

TAKE AWAY

Curry's case was the first lawsuit that ever focused on the CC licenses.

His victory on the copyright claims demonstrates and set the precedent that Creative Commons licenses are enforceable in court under copyright law.

Decision: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/File:Curry-Audax-English.pdf