The plaintiff won against the defendant for infringement. The defendant claimed
a common practice to republish and failed on this, just as the defendant had
failed on the similar plea in the Gribble. The defendant also claimed,
unsuccessfully, that the plaintiff’s licence to The Timesled the defendant to
expect that it was similarly licensed:Banier v. News Group Newspapers Ltd [1997] F.S.R. 812 (U.K.: High Court)MR JUSTICE LIGHTMAN:NGN [the defendants] contend that the grant of the licence by Mr Banier’s agent to TN [Times
Newspapers] free of charge on terms that reference was made to Mr Banier as photographer ...
led NGN to believe that Mr Banier did or would not object to publication of the photograph by
NGN.This contention is imaginative but totally lacking in any other quality. Neither Mr Banier nor his
agent made any representation or gave any reason for NGN believing any such thing. NGN knew
it needed a licence: it knew it could not get it in time: and, ... with its eyes wide open to the risk
of proceedings for infringement, it decided to publish and be damned. In the circumstances, it
can have no basis for complaint that it is now damned.- PERSONS OTHER THAN THOSE ACTUALLY DOING THE
UNAUTHORIZED ACTS MAY ALSO BE LIABLE FOR
INFRINGEMENT
Copyright is infringed by whoever actually does the unauthorized act. If an
employee does the act, the employer will also be an infringer if the employee
has acted in the course of his employment.Persons who “authorize” or “contribute to” infringement may also consequently
be infringers. Authorization or contribution requires some involvement with the
infringing activity. The nature and degree of the involvement are critical, as the
following cases indicate.- Whoever “authorizes” infringement is himself also an infringer
EXAMPLE 1:The plaintiff owned the copyright in a book of short stories. A university
operated a library where students or other users copied material, using coin-
operated photocopiers housed in the library foyer. One Brennan made two
photocopies of a story from the plaintiff’s book without the plaintiff’s consent.Moorhouse sued the university for “authorizing” this infringement.The suit raised two questions:(1) What does “authorize” mean?(2) Did the university “authorize” Brennan to infringe?
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