Goldman v. Breitbart News Network, LLC Case Brief
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Case Brief Summary & Legal Analysis
tl;dr: News websites embedded tweets containing a copyrighted photo of Tom Brady. The court held this violated the photographer’s exclusive right to display the photo, even though the image was stored on Twitter’s servers, not the defendants’.
Legal Significance: The case rejects the Ninth Circuit’s “server test,” holding that embedding an image can constitute direct copyright infringement of the public display right, regardless of whether the embedder hosts a copy of the image on its own server.
Case Facts & Court Holding
Key Facts & Case Background
Plaintiff Justin Goldman took a photograph of Tom Brady and posted it to his Snapchat Story. The photograph subsequently went viral and was posted on Twitter by several users without Goldman’s authorization. Defendants, a group of online news outlets including Breitbart News Network, published articles about Tom Brady. To illustrate their stories, they embedded the tweets containing Goldman’s copyrighted photograph directly into their webpages. This process, known as embedding, involves adding HTML code that instructs a user’s browser to retrieve the image from a third-party server (in this case, Twitter) and display it seamlessly within the defendant’s webpage. It is undisputed that the defendants never downloaded or stored a copy of the photograph on their own servers. Goldman, the registered copyright owner, sued the defendants for direct copyright infringement, alleging they violated his exclusive right to publicly display the work under § 106(5) of the Copyright Act. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment on the sole legal issue of whether embedding constitutes a “display.”
Court Holding & Legal Precedent
Issue: Does a website operator infringe a copyright holder’s exclusive right to publicly display a work under § 106(5) of the Copyright Act when it embeds content from a third-party server, causing the copyrighted image to appear on its webpage, without ever possessing a copy of the image on its own server?
Yes. The defendants’ act of embedding the tweet containing the copyrighted photograph Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute i
IRAC Legal Analysis
About IRAC analysis
IRAC (Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion) is the structure professors expect in exam answers. Each LSD.Law brief states the issue, the governing rule with citations, the court's application of that rule, and the conclusion - the same reasoning pattern you will use on exams and in practice.
Legal Issue
Does a website operator infringe a copyright holder’s exclusive right to publicly display a work under § 106(5) of the Copyright Act when it embeds content from a third-party server, causing the copyrighted image to appear on its webpage, without ever possessing a copy of the image on its own server?
Conclusion
This decision creates a significant circuit split with the Ninth Circuit by Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in
Legal Rule
A party infringes a copyright holder's exclusive right to "display the copyrighted Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariat
Legal Analysis
The court rejected the defendants' argument to adopt the "server test" from Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt i
Flash-to-Full Case Opinions
Flash Summary
- Embedding a copyrighted image on a website violates the owner’s exclusive