The Court need not fix the precise scope of any license created by the Twitter TOS in order to resolve the dispute before it. Rather, it suffices to say that based on the evidence presented to the Court the Twitter TOS do not provide AFP with an excuse for its conduct in this case.... Put differently, the evidence does not reflect a clear intent to grant AFP a license to remove the Photos-at-Issue from Twitter and license them to third parties, nor does it “necessarily require” such a license.... Indeed, this is the fatal flaw in AFP’s argument: it fails to recognize that even if some re-uses of content posted on Twitter may be permissible, this does not necessarily require a general license to use this content as AFP has.

Arguing for third party beneficiary status, AFP advances on this motion many of the same arguments that Judge Pauley has already considered and rejected with regard to the express language of the Twitter TOS. For example, the plain language of the Twitter TOS does not support finding a license covering AFP’s conduct, even as a third-party beneficiary. As Judge Pauley already explained, the Twitter TOS spell out expressly the entities to whom a license is granted, namely Twitter and its partners—and AFP does not contend that it is one of Twitter’s “partners.” Id. Construing the Twitter TOS to provide an unrestrained, third-party license to remove content from Twitter and commercially license that content would be a gross expansion of the terms of the Twitter TOS. Indeed, if Twitter intended to confer such a benefit, it easily could have manifested this intent. Instead, the Twitter TOS specify that the license was granted to Twitter and its partners, that the license “includes the right for Twitter to make . . . Content available,” and that additional uses of this content “by Twitter” or its partners may be made without compensation. In short, rather than showing that the benefit AFP claims was “necessarily required,” ... by the Twitter TOS, the terms of this contract cut against finding that Twitter intended to confer the benefit of a license on AFP to sell licenses to the pictures posted on Twitter or TwitPic.

In addition, in making its arguments on summary judgment AFP wholly ignores those portions of the Twitter TOS that are directly contrary to its position, particularly those portions stating that “[y]ou retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display” and “what’s yours is yours – you own your content.” These statements would have no meaning if the Twitter TOS allowed third parties to remove the content from Twitter and license it to others without the consent of the copyright holder.

The statutory text is not a model of clarity on this issue but—on the whole—it favors Counterclaim Defendants’ interpretation rather than Morel’s. For instance, § 504(c)(1) provides for “an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work.”... The intent of this statute therefore appears to be to constrain the award of statutory damages to a single award per work, rather than allowing a multiplication of damages based on the number of infringements. Morel’s interpretation would effectively bypass the limit of a single statutory award for “all infringements” of a work because it would hold Getty or AFP liable for multiple infringements of a single work. This conclusion is further supported by § 504(c)(1)’s provision that a group of defendants who are all jointly and severally liable with each other are also to be liable for only a single statutory damages award, suggesting that a copyright holder should not be allowed to multiply damages against an infringer based on the infringing activity of jointly liable thirdparties. Relatedly, as pointed out in McClatchey v. AP, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40416, at *10 (W.D. Pa. June 4, 2007), the interpretation Morel offers “would render the word ‘any’ [in ‘for which any two or more infringers and jointly and severally liable’] superfluous, or alternatively, would rewrite the statute to impose a single award only where ‘all infringers are liable jointly and severally.’”

Also counseling against Morel’s proposed interpretation is that it would lead to absurd results.... First, as Counterclaim Defendants point out, Morel’s interpretation of the statutory damages provision could lead to awards of statutory damages that are massively disproportionate when compared to the actual harm caused by the infringing defendants. Indeed, as discussed above, Morel’s position in this case is that—notwithstanding the extent of the actual harm that Counterclaim Defendants may have caused—he is entitled to tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of damages. The Court finds it unlikely that Congress intended the statutory damages provision of the Copyright Act to create such a result.

The omission of the references to damages “per act” differentiates the damages available for violations of § 1202 from those available for violations of § 1201, and demonstrates that damages should not be multiplied based on the number of recipients of the Photos-at-Issue. Rather, damages should be assessed per violation—i.e., based on AFP and Getty’s actions in uploading or distributing the Photos-at-Issue, regardless of the number of recipients of these images.

"I was covering the fall of Sirte and heard gunfire a little further west of where I was. The rebels explained to us that Kadhafi’s men had tried to break out at night a little further west. There had been fighting but this sounded more like celebrations than fighting," said Desmazes. "So I asked the fighters to take me there. When I got there, they showed me big concrete cylinders in which they said Kadhafi had been hiding when he was captured. A little further on, I noticed some fighters gathered around a phone. I was lucky because I was the only one to notice them. The owner of the phone showed me the arrest of Kadhafi which he had filmed a few minutes earlier. Given the ambient light, it was very difficult to take a screen grab. The fighters gathered round and gave me enough shadow to take the shot. I was really lucky," he said.

Given that Getty has 80 million images, it may have some agita that its fair use defense did not defeat a 12(b)(6) motion, given that perhaps some others of its 80 million photos that may depict recognizable trademarks as well.

"People that don't have to make a living from photography and do it as a hobby don't feel the need to charge a reasonable rate,"

In 2005, Getty Images licensed 1.4 million preshot commercial photos. Last year, it licensed 22 million -- and "all of the growth was through our user-generated business"