Bridgeman Art Library V. Corel Corp. - Subsequent Jurisprudence

Subsequent Jurisprudence

As the decision of a federal district court, Bridgeman is not binding precedent on other federal or state courts, but it has nevertheless been highly influential as persuasive authority, and is widely followed by other federal courts.

Several federal courts have followed the ruling in Bridgeman. In Meshwerks v. Toyota, 528 F.3d 1258 (10th Cir. 2008), the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit favorably cited Bridgeman v. Corel, extending the reasoning in Bridgeman to cover 3D wireframe meshes of existing 3D objects. The appeals court wrote "he law is becoming increasingly clear: one possesses no copyright interest in reproductions ... when these reproductions do nothing more than accurately convey the underlying image". Specifically following Bridgeman, the appeals court wrote, "In Bridgeman Art Library, the court examined whether color transparencies of public domain works of art were sufficiently original for copyright protection, ultimately holding that, as 'exact photographic copies of public domain works of art,' they were not." The Meshwerks opinion also revisited a 1959 case, Alva Studios, Inc. v. Winninger, 177 F. Supp. 265 (S.D.N.Y. 1959), in which the district court enforced a copyright claimed on a reproduction sculpture of Rodin's Hand of God. The Meshwerks decision, however, specifically overturned that case: "We are not convinced that the single case to which we are pointed where copyright was awarded for a “slavish copy” remains good law." The appeals court ruling cited and followed the United States Supreme Court decision in Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service (1991), explicitly rejecting difficulty of labor or expense as a consideration in copyrightability. This line of reasoning has been followed in other cases, such as Eastern America Trio Products v. Tang Electronic Corp, 54 USPQ2d 1776, 1791 (S.D.N.Y. 2000), where it was ruled that "here is a very broad scope for copyright in photographs, encompassing almost any photograph that reflects more than 'slavish copying'."

The Bridgeman case has caused great concern among various museums, which receive income from licensing photographic reproductions of objects and works in their collections. Some of them have argued, as above, that the case has limited precedential value, or that (even though it was a federal court case) it has no application outside of the state of New York.

Others who reject the judgment on the Bridgeman case have pointed to Schiffer Publishing v. Chronicle Books as providing a contrary decision. However, in Schiffer, the facts of the case differed. In particular, the plaintiff had not been making any attempt at full fidelity with the works being photographed, and thus the photographs comprised an element of originality. As stated in Schiffer, "he tone and value of colors in the Schiffer photograph differed from those of the actual fabric swatch", meaning that not only was fidelity not achieved, but in fact the photographs were visibly inaccurate representations of the works photographed. The presiding judge in the case, Judge Berle M. Schiller, cited Bridgeman and went to great lengths to demonstrate that the material facts of Schiffer differ from those of Bridgeman. Bielstein concludes from this that far from Schiffer contradicting Bridgeman, it actually reinforces it and builds upon it, confirming that an "interpretive dimension or spark of originality" over and above "slavish copying", conferred originality and copyrightability.