One Application, Thousands of Photographs: Alaska Stock v. Houghton Mifflin and Group Registration

In Alaska Stock v. Houghton Mifflin (9th Cir. 2014), the court upheld a stock agency's database registrations that did not name every photographer or title, deferring to three decades of Copyright Office practice on registering collections.

In Alaska Stock, LLC v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., No. 10-36010 (9th Cir. Mar. 18, 2014), the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit confronted a question that determines whether stock photography agencies can practically protect their libraries: does a single “group” registration of a collection of photographs — one that does not separately list every individual author and title — validly register the component images? The court, in an opinion by Judge Kleinfeld, held that it does, reversing a district court dismissal and reaffirming a registration practice the Copyright Office had sanctioned for roughly three decades.

At a glance

Case: Alaska Stock, LLC v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., No. 10-36010.
Court / date: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, decided March 18, 2014.
Disposition: District court dismissal reversed; remanded.
Holding: Registration of a collection (catalog/database) by a stock agency that owns the copyrights in the component photographs registers those component works, even though the application did not list each individual author and title, where the registration conformed to long-standing Copyright Office guidance.
Significance: A leading appellate vindication of group/collection registration for high-volume visual-works businesses.

The mismatch between the statute and the marketplace

Stock photography agencies face a structural problem. They license vast libraries — tens or hundreds of thousands of images — and it is commercially impossible to file a separate registration for every photograph. For decades the Copyright Office addressed this by allowing agencies to register large collections at once, in catalogs, CD-ROM catalogs, and databases, without enumerating each individual photographer and title in the application. Alaska Stock did exactly that, registering its images in collections and, in keeping with Office guidance, naming the agency as claimant and a representative set of authors rather than itemizing every contributor and work.

Alaska Stock licensed certain photographs to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for use in textbooks, subject to print-run and distribution limits. According to the complaint, the publisher exceeded those limits — using far more copies than it had paid for. When Alaska Stock sued, the district court dismissed, holding that the collection registrations were defective because they had not separately identified each author and title as, in the district court’s view, the Copyright Act’s collective-works provisions required. The dismissal threatened not just Alaska Stock’s case but the registrations underpinning an entire industry.

The statutory question: what § 409 demands of a collective work

The dispute centered on 17 U.S.C. § 409, which lists the information a registration application must contain, including, for a work “compiled of preexisting materials,” identification of the author and the nature of the contributions. Houghton Mifflin argued — and the district court agreed — that this required Alaska Stock to name every photographer and title for the individual images to be registered, so that an unenumerated photograph was simply not registered and could not support an infringement claim.

The Ninth Circuit rejected that reading. The court emphasized two points. First, Alaska Stock owned the copyrights in the component photographs; the photographers had assigned to the agency the rights necessary for it to register and enforce them. Where the registrant owns both the collection and its components, registering the collection registers the components — there is no separate “author” whose independently held rights are left unregistered. Second, and decisively, Alaska Stock had followed the procedure the Register of Copyrights had prescribed. The Copyright Office had, for some thirty years, accepted exactly this form of collection registration from stock agencies and instructed applicants on how to complete it. Having invited the practice, the government could not now have it declared insufficient to the detriment of the parties who relied on it.

Deference to the Register and reliance over three decades

The opinion is, at bottom, a study in administrative reliance. The Ninth Circuit deferred to the Copyright Office’s interpretation of the statute it administers, finding that interpretation reasonable. The court stressed that the procedure had been maintained for decades, that the Office itself had filed to explain and defend the practice, and that “the livelihoods of photographers and stock agencies have long relied upon” the validity of these registrations. To invalidate them now would retroactively strip protection from countless images registered in good faith according to the government’s own instructions.

The decision also reckoned with an inconvenient precedent. In Muench Photography, Inc. v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., a district court in the Southern District of New York had reached the opposite conclusion, holding that collection registration did not register the individual photographs absent naming their authors. The Ninth Circuit declined to follow Muench, finding its reasoning inconsistent with the Copyright Office’s long-standing position and with the practical realities the Office had accommodated. The split between the courts highlighted just how much turned on whether a court read § 409 as a rigid checklist or as a provision to be administered sensibly by the agency Congress charged with running the registration system.

The court’s approach was consistent with its own prior recognition, in cases such as Bean v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., that overly technical attacks on stock-photo registrations should not be allowed to defeat otherwise valid claims — a theme the Supreme Court would later echo in a different register in Unicolors v. H&M, where good-faith registration errors were held not to invalidate a certificate.

Open questions

How far does ownership do the work? The holding leans heavily on the agency’s ownership of the component copyrights; the treatment of collections where the registrant holds only a license, or only some components, is less settled.
What survives the modern group-registration rules? The Copyright Office has since formalized and revised group-registration options (including dedicated procedures for photographs); how Alaska Stock’s reasoning maps onto the current regulatory regime continues to be worked out.
Does the deference rationale outlast the practice? The decision rests partly on three decades of reliance; its force where the Office changes course, or for works registered under newer rules, is uncertain.
How will other circuits come out? With a district-court split already on the books, the validity of older collection registrations may yet draw differing appellate treatment elsewhere.

Implications

Collection registration can reach components. A stock agency that owns the underlying images can, by registering the collection, register the individual photographs — even without itemizing every author and title.
Reliance on Office guidance is protected. Applicants who follow the Register’s prescribed procedures should not have their registrations invalidated for failing a more demanding reading of the statute.
Document ownership. Because the holding turns on the registrant’s ownership of the component copyrights, agencies should keep clean assignment records establishing that they hold the rights they register.
Use current group-registration tools. The Copyright Office now offers specific group-registration mechanisms for photographs; high-volume creators should register under the applicable current procedures.
Technical defenses face headwinds. The decision is part of a broader judicial reluctance to let hyper-technical registration objections defeat meritorious infringement claims.

Frequently asked questions

Did Alaska Stock have to name every photographer to register the images? No. The Ninth Circuit held that because the agency owned the copyrights in the component photographs and followed the Copyright Office’s prescribed collection-registration procedure, registering the collection registered the individual images without listing each author and title.

Why did the court defer to the Copyright Office? The Office administers the registration system, had sanctioned this collection-registration practice for about thirty years, and had explained and defended it. The court found the Office’s interpretation reasonable and was unwilling to upset registrations that an entire industry had relied upon in good faith.

Does this case still control how I register photographs today? Its reasoning remains influential, but the Copyright Office has since adopted formal group-registration rules for photographs. Creators should register under the current procedures while drawing comfort from the decision’s protection of good-faith reliance on Office guidance.