In a
June 12, 2014 ruling, Judge John F. Keenan denied reconsideration of his
March 24, 2014 ruling granting plaintiffs partial summary judgment on their copyright infringement claims. Defendants argued that the Court's original rulings that substantial similarity only need be shown in the absence of evidence of direct copying and that the Court in any event applied the wrong standard for substantial similarity were erroneous because they "overlooked binding Second Circuit authority." In rejecting these arguments, the Court wrote:
Even if a substantial similarity analysis is still required when actual direct copying is already established, that would not affect Defendants' liability because the Court went on to engage in this analysis. As Defendants acknowledge, the Court compared the images on the website to the copyrighted photographs and determined that "the images on the masthead are substantially similar because they are exact copies."
Judge Keenan rejected defendants' argued that one of the photographs at issue was not substantially similar because it was "flipped" in orientation, noting that this "new argument is belied by their concession that the image was actually copied from the photograph registered with on of Plaintiffs' copyrighted albums."
