Over a decade ago, a lawyer snapped a photograph of the Indianapolis skyline, thus opening the gates to perhaps the most prolific flood of copyright litigation in the history of Indiana. Over the last five years or so, this image has been the basis for dozens of copyright infringement lawsuits against scads of defendants. However, on July 18, 2017, Southern District of Indiana Judge Richard Young cast doubt on whether the plaintiff in all those copyright cases actually ever owned the copyright in the first place.
A "Digital Extortionist"?
In early 2000, Indiana attorney Richard Bell was working with designers to create a website for the law firm at which he was a partner, Cohen & Malad. In February 2000, the website designer suggested some stock photos of the Indianapolis skyline for use on the website. Bell, himself a photographer as well as a lawyer, didn't want the firm to spend money on generic stock photos. In March 2000, Bell went out to the St. Clair Avenue canal bridge and took a photo of the skyline with his own camera. The firm ultimately used Bell's photo on the website.
In 2011, after his retirement from the full-time practice of law and after the firm was done using the photograph, Bell registered it (and at least one other image he took of the same subject matter) with the Copyright Office. Bell is no Ansel Adams, but his photos are pretty good. Bell uploaded them to an internet photo stream, and they ended up rising to the top of many Google searches for pictures of the city. Consequently, lots of people came across these images and downloaded them for use on a range of websites and promotional materials.
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