Dissent

All judges favor Greenberg.

Your own argument

I feel that the first decision that the court had made was not justified. There was an agreement between the Society of National Geographic and Mr. Greenberg. The agreement was honored and the society had returned all images and copyright back to the author. Later on the Society had again used the images that had belonged to Greenberg on a product that was being published for an anniversary of national Geographic that celebrated the 108 years of establishment. They felt that they had all rights of the images that were being used. They felt this way, due to thinking that they were merely using the images as a revision of a prior collective work. The 11th circuit court found all reason to the Society of National Geographic.
Greenberg had applied for an appeal. They felt that the National Geographic had no rights to use those images without asking.

The copyright infringement law states that: “Contribution to collective works. Copyright in each separate contribution to a collective work is distinct from copyright in the collective work as a whole, and vests initially in the author of the contribution. In the absence of an express transfer of the copyright or of any rights under it, the owner of copyright in the collective work is presumed to have acquired only the privilege of reproducing and distributing the contribution as part of that particular collective work, any revisions of that collective work, and any later collective work in the same series.”

http://www.internetlibrary.com/cases/lib_case504.cfm

With this said. I feel that the 11th circuit courts had decided unfairly. The big item to all the decision is that the society and Greenberg had decided on a contract to finalize all rights of his images after 60 days of publication. I feel that this contract that the Society and Greenberg was ignored to all limits. I also feel that the courts favored to the society due to the lack of rules to technology.
I felt that this case was at every right to be taken to the Supreme Court. There was another case that was similar to Greenberg. New York Times Co. v. Tasini. They ruled favored to Tasini.

“Respondent freelance authors (Authors) wrote articles (Articles) for newspapers and a magazine published by petitioners New York Times Company (Times), Newsday, Inc. (Newsday), and Time, Inc. (Time). The Times, Newsday, and Time (Print Publishers) engaged the Authors as independent contractors under contracts that in no instance secured an Author's consent to placement of an Article in an electronic database.”

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=00-201
This case was similar to Greenberg, the Supreme Court used the ruling from the Tasini case to over rule the courts decision to the Jerry Greenberg v. National Geographic Society.

Rule of Law

201 (c) Contributions to Collective Works.— Copyright in each separate contribution to a collective work is distinct from copyright in the collective work as a whole, and vests initially in the author of the contribution. In the absence of an express transfer of the copyright or of any rights under it, the owner of copyright in the collective work is presumed to have acquired only the privilege of reproducing and distributing the contribution as part of that particular collective work, any revision of that collective work, and any later collective work in the same series.
issue

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/usc_sec_17_00000201----000-.htm
The Society of National Geographic had made a contract with Greenberg. The contract consisted that the Society of National Geographic would return all images 60 days after the images were published.

In 1996, the society, began in a development of a product called, “The complete national geographic”, this was 30 cd-roms that would hold front covers of all the National Geographic that were published from the first published. Mr. Greenberg’s images were viewed for 30 sec. This had broke there contract and also established infringements on copyrights.

Decisions of the court

We conclude that the unauthorized use of the Greenberg photographs in the CNG compiled and authored by the Society constitutes copyright infringement that is not excused by the privilege afforded the Society

We also find that the unauthorized use of Greenberg's diver photograph in the derivative and collective work, the Sequence, compiled by the Society, constitutes copyright infringement, and that the proffered de minimis use defense is without merit.

http://www.internetlibrary.com/cases/lib_case504.cfm

The district court agreed with National Geographic, and dismissed plaintiff’s suit. In its initial decision in this case, the 11th Circuit disagreed, holding that this work constituted a new product “in a new medium, for a new market that far transcends any privilege of revision or other mere reproduction envisioned in section 201(c).” In its initial decision, the 11th Circuit accordingly rejected defendants’ defense that its conducted was protected by 201(c).

Subsequent to this decision, the Supreme Court decided New York Times Co. v. Tasini, in which the Court held that under Section 201(c) the Times could not republish articles that had appeared in its newspapers in an electronic database which permitted them to be separated from the context – the newspaper – in which they originally appeared without the permission of their authors. The Court held that including these articles in such electronic databases was not a permitted revision of the collective work in which they originally appeared, and was thus not protected by the New York Times’ copyright therein.

Following Tasini, the Second Circuit, in Faulkner, decided that the National Geographic’s republication of its magazines in the Complete National Geographic cd-rom set was indeed a revision protected by 201(c), and dismissed a copyright infringement suit brought, like the case at bar, by the holder of a copyright of photos contained in those magazines.

In light of these decisions, the 11th Circuit reversed it prior decision, and held that the Complete National Geographic was indeed a permitted revision of the original magazines protected by application of Section 201(c). As explained by the 11th Circuit, the central question was “whether the original context of the collective work has been preserved in the revision.” Because such was the case here, as the cd-roms contained 1200 National Geographic magazines exactly as they had originally been published, this was a revision protected by 201(c). This was true notwithstanding the fact that the cd-roms also included a new 25 second video montage of the covers of 10 of the magazines contained in the cd-rom set. Said the Court:

http://www.internetlibrary.com/cases/lib_case504.cfm

These are the decisions of the courts. I find that the courts decisions are appropriate. There is many corporations, that take advantage of free-lance artist. This is one war that artist weather photographer or painter or even a chef, need to be able to protect their work.

Facts of the case.

The facts are that there was an agreement and in this agreement it was explicitly provided that all rights that the Society acquired in the photographs from the job would be returned to Greenberg 60 days after the pictures were published in the Magazine.

After years had passed the society of National Geographic had a ceremony and produced an animated clip with previous issues, These images, through the use of computer animation, overlappingly fades ("morphs") into the image of another cover, pauses on that cover for approximately one second, and then morphs into another cover image, and so on, until 10 different covers have been displayed. One of the cover images used in the moving covers sequence is a picture of a diver that was taken by Greenberg in 1961. The entire sequence lasts for 25 seconds, and is accompanied by music and sound effects.

After eleven years of court, in its final form, granted The National Geographic Society -- and by extension, other publishers -- the right to reproduce its magazine archive in digital format without paying additional royalties to freelance contributors.