DMLA Newsbreak 8/2/23
DMLA Legal Update:
VHT v. Zillow Group II (9th Cir. 2023)
VHT, the largest professional real estate photography studio in the country, sued Zillow for copyright infringement after Zillow displayed thousands of their photos on the “Digs” part of its website. After summary judgement rulings, a jury trial, an initial appeal, and a bench trial, the case wound its way back to the Ninth Circuit for a second time as the parties appealed the bench trial on remand. Significantly, on the second round of VHT v. Zillow Group II (2023), the Ninth Circuit, in addition to deciding a registration issue, held that VHT’s images, registered both as a database and as individual images, were individual works that gave rise to statutory damages for each of the 2,700 infringements, rather than as a database that would give rise to only a single act of infringement and one award of statutory damages as a compilation. Read More Here
DMLA and Visual 1st Announce Strategic Partnership and Cross-conference Ticketing Specials
The Digital Media Licensing Association and Visual 1st announce a strategic partnership aimed at their respective conference attendees to learn and network together. The two conferences will be held back-to-back in San Francisco later this year:
The IDMLC (International Digital Media Licensing Conference) will be held Oct. 23-24 (opening reception Oct. 22);
Visual 1st will be held Oct. 24 (pm + reception) and Oct. 25 (am + pm).
Why would IDMLC attendees benefit from attending Visual 1st as well?Leslie Hughes, President of DMLA, explains the benefits as follows, “Many of our IDMLC attendees not only seek to gain insights into today’s trending issues in media production, distribution and licensing, but they are also at the forefront of imaging technology innovations, which are explored in-depth at Visual 1st. Our partnership offers a great opportunity for our members and IDMLC attendees to also join Visual 1st sessions and mingle with various photo & video industry trailblazers that attend Visual 1st.”
Why would Visual 1st visitors attend IDMLC as well? According to Hans Hartman, chair of Visual 1st, “While Visual 1st focuses on educating photo & video executives and startups about the latest imaging technology innovations and business opportunities, our partnership with DMLA provides our attendees a unique opportunity to also dive deeply into licensing and monetization issues at IDMLC, hear from top experts about copyright law, learn about frontiers in generative AI, and network with leaders from companies like Shutterstock, Getty Images, Alamy, Amazon and more."
For more information on the two events and cross-promotion benefits, Read Full Announcement Here.
IDMLC Update:
The conference team is busy creating an amazing agenda for the International Digital Media Licensing Conference (IDMLC) - the premiere event for media production, distribution and licensing. Registration spots are going quickly and are limited to 200 in-person. These organizations are currently confirmed and the list is growing daily:
We hope to see you in San Francisco. For conference information on the IDMLC, go here. Or to register and purchase your ticket, select the button below.