## Facts

- Alaska Stock, LLC operated a stock photography agency that marketed and licensed photographs and obtained copyright ownership in specific images through written assignments from individual photographers.
- Instead of registering each photograph separately, Alaska Stock registered compilations of photos as collective works (CD catalogs and database collections), identifying the “work” by catalog-style titles (e.g., a numbered CD catalog).
- On the registration applications, Alaska Stock generally listed only some photographers by name followed by a numerical reference to additional contributors (e.g., “& 103 others”), rather than listing every author and each photograph title.
- Alaska Stock licensed Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company to use certain images in textbooks and other publications, with fees tied to particular print-run limits or publication quantities.
- Alaska Stock alleged Houghton Mifflin and its printer, R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, exceeded the licensed scope by printing or distributing more than authorized and thereby infringed the copyrights.
- The case was resolved at the pleading stage, so the appellate court treated the complaint’s allegations as true.

## Issues

1. Whether registration of a collective work (a catalog/database of photographs) constitutes registration of the individual photographs within the collective work when the registrant owns the component copyrights.
2. Whether the registrations were invalid or insufficient because they did not list the title and author for each individual photograph and photographer.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that registration of a collective work can register the component works within it when the party registering the collective work owns the copyrights in those components.
- The court concluded Alaska Stock’s registrations covered both the catalogs/collections and the individual photographs contained in them, despite not listing every photograph title and every photographer’s name.

## Legal Principles

- Registration of a collective work extends to component works within the collective work if the registrant owns the copyrights in the component works.
- For registration purposes, the “work” identified on the application may be the collective work itself; the Copyright Act does not impose a clear requirement in this context to list each component’s author and title when the collective-work registration is used.
- Courts may give weight to the Copyright Office’s reasonable, long-standing registration practices, including practices allowing stock photo agencies to register large collections without enumerating each image title and each contributor’s name, when consistent with statutory requirements.
- A plaintiff satisfies the registration prerequisite to bringing an infringement action when its collective-work registrations validly cover the component works allegedly infringed.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that Alaska Stock’s collective-work registrations for its photo catalogs and databases were sufficient to register the individual photographs within those collections because Alaska Stock owned the component copyrights, making dismissal for lack of valid registration improper.


Alaska Stock, LLC v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publ'g Co., 747 F.3d 673 (9th Cir. 2014)