## Facts

- Minden Pictures, Inc., a stock photography company, entered written agency agreements with numerous photographers from 1993 to 2008.
- The agreements generally appointed Minden as the photographers’ “sole and exclusive agent” for licensing uses of images within defined territories and granted Minden broad authority to “distribute, License, and/or exploit” the images without special permission.
- Photographers retained certain rights, including the ability to use their own images and, in some circumstances, to license the images themselves.
- Acting under the agreements, Minden issued limited licenses to John Wiley & Sons, Inc. for use of photographs in textbooks, with restrictions such as print run, geography, and format.
- Minden alleged Wiley exceeded license limits by printing and distributing more copies than authorized (e.g., hundreds of thousands of copies where 20,000 were licensed).
- Some images were registered listing Minden as claimant; others were registered by the photographers (sometimes noting Minden as exclusive agent).
- Minden sued for copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 501(b) based on alleged unauthorized reproduction, distribution, and display beyond the licenses.

## Issues

1. Whether Minden, as a licensing agent under its agency agreements, was a “legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright” with statutory standing to sue under 17 U.S.C. § 501(b).
2. Whether an exclusive right sufficient for standing can consist of an exclusive grant limited to licensing third parties to reproduce, distribute, and display photographs, even if photographers retain some usage and licensing rights.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit reversed the judgment for Wiley and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held the agency agreements conveyed to Minden an ownership interest in exclusive rights sufficient to sue for infringement under § 501(b).
- Minden could sue to remedy alleged unauthorized reproduction, distribution, and display by Wiley where Wiley allegedly exceeded the scope of licenses Minden granted.

## Legal Principles

- Under 17 U.S.C. § 501(b), only a “legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright” may institute an infringement action for infringement of that right committed while it is owned.
- Copyright ownership is divisible; exclusive rights may be transferred in partial “slices,” and the owner of a particular exclusive right may sue for infringement of that right.
- An exclusive license can exist even when the copyright owner retains other rights, and even when the licensee’s exclusivity is limited (including exclusivity limited to granting licenses to third parties within defined markets or territories).
- A non-exclusive licensee (a “bare licensee”) lacks standing because no exclusive right is transferred; contractual language granting “sole and exclusive” licensing authority can establish exclusive rights for § 501(b) purposes.
- Potential joinder or parallel standing of photographers does not negate an exclusive licensee’s statutory standing at the threshold.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that Minden’s “sole and exclusive” agency agreements transferred exclusive rights to authorize reproduction, distribution, and display through third-party licensing, making Minden an exclusive licensee with statutory standing under § 501(b) to sue Wiley for alleged license overuse.


Minden Pictures, Inc. v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 795 F.3d 997 (9th Cir. 2015)