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Posts Tagged ‘Judge’

Judge rules DJI infringed patent, recommends ceasing sales and imports of most DJI drones

18 May

On March 2nd, Steptoe, a leading international law firm, secured a major trial victory for Autel Robotics USA at the US International Trade Commission (ITC). The ITC’s chief administrative law judge found that SZ DJI Technology Co. Ltd., the world’s largest manufacturer of consumer drones, and 7 related entities collectively known as ‘DJI,’ violated Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended. DJI has been importing and selling drones that infringe on Autel’s US Patent No. 9, 260,184.

The ITC’s chief administrative law judge recommended barring the following DJI products from importation into the United States: the Mavic Pro, Mavic Pro Platinum, Mavic 2 Pro, Mavic 2 Zoom, Mavic Air, and Spark. The judge also recommended a cease and desist order prohibiting DJI from selling any of these products that are already in the U.S. when the exclusion order issues. If upheld, all of these products could be removed from the U.S. market as early as July.

Autel scored another victory with the ITC. DJI was forced to post a 9.9% bond during the 60-day presidential review period following the exclusion order. Autel also filed a petition to prevent other DJI products from being sold including the Phantom 4 and Inspire series of drones. It is worth noting that DJI’s Inspire 1 and most of its Phantom 4 line has been discontinued, with the exception of the Phantom 4 Pro V2.0. The Spark and original Mavic Pro models are also no longer produced.

Representatives from DJI declined to comment on the matter at this time.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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US Judge rules against county seeking to ban drone flights in their parks

18 Feb
The Michigan Coalition of Drone Operators celebrates their victory outside of the Genesee County courthouse.

On February 10th, the Honorable Judge Joseph Farah handed down a ruling in favor of the Michigan Coalition of Drone Operators (MCDO) after Genesee County, in Flint, tried to establish an ordinance banning drones in their parks. The three-month-long legal battle was ignited after R. Jason Harrison was arrested in December 2018 for flying legally in a park. Harrison’s drone and accessories were confiscated and he was issued a misdemeanor.

Even though the ticket was dropped, Harrison sought the counsel of Dean Greenblatt, an aviation attorney licensed in both Michigan and Florida. Greenblatt had the following to say to DPReview regarding the situation:

‘I understand that this case is the first to attempt enforcement of statewide preemption statutes regarding drones. It is the first legal challenge in Michigan, and presumably the first legal challenge to a preemption statute anywhere in the country.’

What happened to Harrison isn’t unusual for remote pilots operating in a majority of states across the US. 33 of them don’t have the proper State Legislation in place. This allows local governments to establish their own laws regarding drone use. Even though the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has jurisdiction over national airspace, local municipalities in these 33 states can override the government agency by passing rules that regulate the land. Many public parks in California, for example, prohibit people from launching an unmanned aerial vehicle on their premises. This creates hassles for commercial drone operators and confusion for casual users less familiar with local ordinances.

Even though the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has jurisdiction over national airspace, local municipalities in these 33 states can override the government agency by passing rules that regulate the land.

There isn’t a central database or uniform resource dedicated to city-specific rules surrounding drone use. It’s not uncommon for someone to check in with an airspace application like Kittyhawk, AirMap, or UASidekick and believe they’re conducting a legal flight….only to be approached by a local law enforcement officer and told to land immediately. Conducting a Google search with the name of the city you plan to fly in along with the terms “drone” or “UAV” is necessary to find out if they have any UAS laws in place.

Michigan is one of the 17 states with a law that specifically prohibits local governments from creating or enforcing their own drone ordinance. MCL 259.305, which is part of Act 436 passed in 2016, specifically states the following about drone use: ‘[e]xcept as expressly authorized by statute, a political subdivision shall not enact or enforce an ordinance or resolution that regulates the ownership or operation of unmanned aircraft or otherwise engage in the regulation of the ownership or operation of unmanned aircraft.’

Genesee County argued that it was exempt from state law and amended its park rules in response to the charges brought against them by the MCDO. Newly-created legislation, to justify their ban of drones, stated the following:

‘Section P910615-Aircraft and Drones

No person shall, upon the property administered by the Commission: Make any ascent or descent, operate or possess any balloon, airplane, parachute, drone, manned or unmanned aircraft on Commission properties or waters, except in designated areas, without first obtaining written permission from the Commission or except as may be necessary in the event of an emergency.’

Judge Joseph Farah signed off on his ruling against the illegal banning of drones in Michigan state parks.

After a series of hearings that took place in October and November, Judge Farah ruled that the state of Michigan’s legislature was clear, binding, and could not be overridden by local lawmakers. Another person who would agree with this sentiment, and even take it a step further, is the FAA’s former Administrator, Daniel Huerta.

In a 2017 keynote address for the InterDrone conference, Huerta stated “legally, the (FAA) has regulatory authority over all U.S. airspace. But successfully blending unmanned aircraft into busy airspace will require state, local, and tribal governments to build upon existing federal efforts to develop and enforce safety rules.”

In a recent development, Genesee County made the decision to override Judge Farah’s ruling and risk being in contempt of court. This stems from their new claim that drone flights within the Class C airspace of KFNT, a ‘no-fly zone’ covering some of the county’s parks, were unlawful. This particular airport participates in the Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC) making it possible for professionals and hobbyists to fly up to a certain altitude with real-time approval.

Greenblatt had the following to say about Genesee County’s newfound defiance: ‘any attempt to enforce a drone ban or “no-fly zones” as labeled in the “Amendment” will be met with a motion to hold the County in contempt and to enforce the injunction.’ Inaccurate and incorrect interpretations of airspace rules is the exact issue that led the State Legislature to enact the drone preemption statute; that is, to prevent a patchwork of local regulations by non-experts.

The MCDO did not seek out any monetary damages from Genesee County. Instead, the group hopes that Judge Farah’s ruling sets a precedent not only for the state of Michigan, but the other 17 states with similar preemption laws should someone find themselves in legal trouble. The final goal is for the remaining 33 states to take up similar legislation to prevent a patchwork of confusing local ordinances and protect the rights of those looking to legally operate drones in national airspace.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Judge rules RNC didn’t violate photographer’s copyright with unauthorized image use

20 Mar
This is Erika Peterman’s photograph the RNC took from Rob Quist’s Facebook page and altered to use on a derogatory mailer. Used with permission.

In May 2017, photographer Erika Peterman filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the Republican National Committee (RNC), alleging the organization had used one of her images for a political mailer without permission. The image features Rob Quist, a Democratic congressional candidate who had run against GOP candidate Greg Gianforte in Montana.

Peterman’s image, which was licensed to the Quist campaign, was used by the RNC without permission as part of a mailer that mocked the politician. In response to the lawsuit, the RNC claimed its mailer represented fair use of the copyrighted image, and Montana judge Dana L. Christensen has sided with that argument.

A photo of the mailer that was sent out to Montana residents by the RNC that used Erika Peterman’s photograph without permission. Used (here) with permission.

According to Lexology, the court dismissed Peterman’s case, finding that the RNC had ‘transformed’ the photo adequately enough to claim fair use. Only small visual alterations were made to the image, such as cropping it to fit the mailer, and those edits alone weren’t sufficient for it to be considered transformative.

However, the court found that the image’s use on a mailer that criticized Quist had transformed the work, stating that the image’s inclusion as an element in this critical media qualified as fair use. The court said:

The mailer uses Quist’s musicianship to criticize his candidacy, subverting the purpose and function of the Work. With the addition of the treble clefs and text throughout, the mailer attempts to create an association between Quist’s musical background and liberal political views… In this context, the image takes on a new meaning.

In addition, the court claimed that the RNC’s use hadn’t impacted Peterman’s ability to profit from the image and that Peterman’s had published the image to Twitter and Facebook. By publishing the image on social media, the court stated, ‘it must be assumed that the MDP, Quist Campaign, and Peterman herself would have welcomed reposts, [etc.] by other pro-Quist social media users.’

Ultimately, the federal judge found the RNC’s unauthorized use of the copyrighted image to be ‘moderately transformative and wholly noncommercial [sic],’ stating that ‘the court determines that the undisputed facts establish that the RNC is entitled to judgement as a matter of law.”

DPReview spoke with Peterman via email and she shared the following response regarding the ruling:

I think equating political criticism to transformative use is pretty far-reaching. This decision gives any political party (or PAC) the freedom to use artistic or creative photos of political candidates for political criticism under the auspices of fair use. This impacts me greatly because I do a lot of political photography and work hard to create compelling, creative photos for the candidates I work with. And, like any photographer or artist, I also want to share my work. However, if I know that my photos can be used for “political criticism” without my permission, it creates a major dilemma for me.
And no, I’m not appealing. Not because I don’t think the decision is wrong, because I do. However, even if my decision were reversed and remanded back to the district court for a trial on whether the RNC’s use of my photo was “transformative”, I would again be in front of the same judge and the outcome would probably be the same. Additionally, I would most likely have to pay the RNC’s costs and possibly their attorney fees. That’s thousands and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars I don’t have.
Last, the judge’s comments about my sharing the photo on Twitter are incorrect. I posted a different photo of Rob Quist on Twitter, but not the one that was the subject of the lawsuit.

DPReview has contact both the RNC and Peterman for comment. this article will be updated accordingly when and if a response is given.

Update (March 19, 2019): This article has been updated with a quote from Erika Peterman

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Huawei launches photography contest with an AI judge

20 Jul

Huawei has launched the world’s first photography contest with both AI and human judges. The company invites photographers to submit their best images to its ‘Spark A Renaissance’ competition, during which time both Huawei’s P20 Pro smartphone AI and Leica pro photographer Alex Lambrechts will review the images.

The contest revolves around the P20 Pro, Huawei’s smartphone co-engineered with Leica. The handset features a triple-camera system and Huawei’s Master AI, which works in real-time to determine which of 19 categories any particular scene belongs to, automatically adjusting the settings in an effort to produce the ideal image.

The contest began on July 12 and will run for 8 weeks. During this time, photographers can submit their images via a Facebook Messenger chatbot, where Huawei explains that its P20 AI will evaluate it in multiple ways:

Trained using 4,000,000 images taken by professional photographers and picture editors the AI will then give each photo a personalised AI score based on parameters such as focus, jitter, deflection, colour and composition.

Huawei’s competition will revolve around five themes total, including “Deep in Detail” and “A New Renaissance,” with the winner in each category receiving a P20 Pro smartphone. A total of 10 winners from the themed categories will be given a trip to Florence, Italy, where they’ll attend a Leica masterclass.

Both Leica photographer Alex Lambrechts and Huawei’s AI will review the images taken during the Florence trip. The final winner chosen from them will receive the Grand Prize, a tour of three European countries. As well, Huawei says the top photos from the contest “will be sold to raise money for a local charity.”

Huawei is currently accepting entries for the contest’s first theme: A New Renaissance. The next theme, After Dark, starts on July 24, followed by three more with the final theme starting on August 28. All five themes can be found here.

Photographers must submit their images to the Huawei Spark A Renaissance Facebook Messenger chatbot, which guides users through the submission process:

Deadlines, eligibility requirements, and more can be found in the contest’s Terms and Conditions. The contest is only open to legal residents in Europe.

Via: Light Stalking

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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PETA monkey selfie lawsuit lives on, judge rejects attempted settlement

17 Apr
Photo: David Slater

It’s the copyright lawsuit that refuses to die. In September 2017, PETA finally settled its monkey selfie lawsuit with photographer David Slater, ending years of financially destructive litigation. However, a request to dismiss the case has since been rejected by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which points out in a newly published order that it’s not required to honor the dismissal request.

The decision to proceed with a ruling appears to be the Ninth Circuit’s way of preventing PETA from dodging a legal outcome that would interfere with potential future litigation of a similar nature. The Court’s order states, in part, that:

…denying the motion to dismiss and declining to vacate the lower court judgement prevents the parties from manipulating precedent in a way that suits their institutional preferences.

The Ninth Circuit further narrows down the thought process behind continuing the lawsuit, stating in the order:

As one of our colleagues once warned in a similar context, “courts must be particularly wary of abetting ‘strategic behavior’ on the part of institutional litigants whose continuing interest in the development in the law may transcend their immediate interest in the outcome of a particular case.”

PETA’s settlement was anticipated last year after signs surfaced indicating the courts weren’t in the organization’s favor. In July 2017, for example, PETA’s attorney faced a series of questions from judges including whether the organization’s relationship with the monkey was of the nature that it could sue on the animal’s behalf. Before that, a federal judge in San Francisco found that the monkey doesn’t have legal standing to sue.

By settling—assuming the case were dismissed and a lower court’s judgement vacated—PETA could dodge a ruling that it may not like; a ruling that could establish a precedent that would prevent it from filing similar lawsuits on the behalf of animals in the future. The Ninth Circuit’s order also states:

We note that although PETA joins Appellants in the motions to dismiss the appeal and to vacate the district court judgment, and claims to have reached a settlement agreement with Appellees, it also points out that Naruto is not a party to the settlement agreement. It appears that the settlement agreement would not bar another attempt to file a new action.

A final ruling in the case is forthcoming.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Judge rules that embedding a photo tweet is still copyright infringement

17 Feb

In a court case that could fundamentally change what constitutes copyright infringement online, a New York district judge has ruled that embedding a tweet that contains a copyright protected photo does, in fact, constitute a copyright violation. If the ruling is upheld, its impact across the internet is hard to understate.

The case involves a photographer, Justin Goldman, who sued several major publications including Time, Vox, Breitbart, and others, when they embedded someone else’s tweet of his copyright-protected photo of NFL star Tom Brady. Judge Katherine B. Forrest is ruling in favor of Goldman, writing:

…when defendants caused the embedded Tweets to appear on their websites, their actions violated plaintiff’s exclusive display right; the fact that the image was hosted on a server owned and operated by an unrelated third party (Twitter) does not shield them from this result.

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) points out, this ruling rejects a decade-old legal precedent set by the Ninth Circuit Court in a 2007 ruling called “Perfect 10 v. Amazon.” That case ruled that the company hosting the content—Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.—was liable, and absolved the company or publication or person who actually embeds the content. This, in essence, is how the internet has worked ever since.

Some sites, like YouTube, give creators the option to limit embedding so that only sites they specify (or nobody at all) can embed the content on their own platform, but others like Instagram and Twitter offer no such control. If your account is public, and you share a copyright-protected photo on it that goes viral, you can expect it to crop up on any number of outside websites, publications, and blogs with nary a permission request.

Of course, if it’s your own share, you could always take down the original Tweet or Instagram post or shift your account to private, breaking all of those embeds all at once. You (or the original poster) could also change what the post says or even swap out the file that shows up under that embed. But irrespective of those things, up until now, you had no legal case against the people or publications embedding your photo, since they have no control over what the hosting server will provide with that embed code—this is called the “server” test.

According to this ruling, embedding the DPReview tweet above without permission from the original creator of the GIF constitutes copyright infringement.

The server test is what Judge Forrest ultimately rejected, and if the ruling is upheld, it could apply to more than just embedding a tweet. As the EFF explains, the wording is broad enough that “the logic of the ruling applies to all in-line linking,” which could “threaten millions of ordinary Internet users with infringement liability.”

Appeals will no doubt be filed, and a closer look at the ruling and the standard practice of embedding on the internet may very well lead to its being overturned. But if it’s not, expect it to be open season for social media copyright infringement cases.

If you’d like to dive deeper, you can read the full ruling for yourself at this link.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Judge determines FAA drone rules take precedence over local regulations

27 Sep

A court has ruled that federal drone laws trump local drone regulations in instances where the two are in conflict, setting a new and very important precedent for commercial and recreational drone pilots alike. The ruling was passed down by US District Judge William G. Young during a legal case involving the city of Newton, Massachusetts, and its drone regulations that are even more restrictive than the FAA’s rules.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the lawsuit was brought by Newton resident Michael Singer, who challenged four Newton provisions including a requirement to get permission before flying a drone over private property. The city had argued that the FAA allows for the local co-regulation of civilian drones, but Judge Young ruled otherwise, in part because the local regulations were sometimes in direct conflict with the FAA’s.

For instance, whereas the FAA allows small drones to be operated below 400ft, the city of Newton’s provisions banned the operation of drones below that altitude if they were over private property. This left pilots only one legal option: get permission from each property owner over whose property the drone would pass. Otherwise you’d either be violating Newton’s laws or the FAA’s regulations.

Referring to this particular law, Judge Young stated, “This thwarts not only the FAA’s objectives, but also those of Congress for the FAA to integrate drones into the national airspace.”

Newton drone provisions that weren’t challenged by the lawsuit have been left in place, and the city has indicated that it may appeal the ruling.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Richard Prince must face lawsuit over image theft, judge rules

28 Jul

Controversial artist Richard Prince must face a lawsuit over his unauthorized use of photographer Donald Graham’s photo ‘Rastafarian Smoking a Joint,’ a federal judge has ruled. The ruling concerns a 2015 lawsuit Graham filed against Prince after he failed to heed a cease and desist order. Prince and Larry Gagosian, owner of the Gagosian Gallery where the pilfered image and others were displayed, had claimed the work is ‘transformative’ in an effort to have the case dismissed.

Real Bongo Nyah man a real Congo Nyah ? repost @indigoochild

A post shared by Jay Kirton Kwame Ka Asante (@rastajay92) on

Though Prince has managed to escape past lawsuits unscathed, this latest one may prove different. Talking about the ‘transformative’ claims, U.S. District Judge Sidney H Stein stated, “The primary image in both works is the photograph itself. Prince has not materially altered the composition, presentation, scale, color palette and media originally used by Graham.”

Graham’s version of the image was acquired from another Instagram account where it was featured; he had it enlarged and printed with his own Instagram-style comment beneath the original user’s caption. The exhibit at Gagosian contained a total of 38 of these ‘borrowed’ images, including the Rastafarian photo cited in the lawsuit. The court’s ultimate ruling on the lawsuit could set a major precedent for fair use as it relates to Instagram images.

Via: New York Times

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Everypixel Aesthetics uses neural networks to judge your photographs

08 Apr

Designers and image editors often have to browse through large numbers of low-quality photographs before they find the stock image that is most suitable for their purposes. Now, a new algorithm has been created to filter images based on their aesthetic value and get rid of the junk before it clogs up your search results. 

Everypixel uses neural networks for ranking stock images and for this purpose has trained the algorithms to judge the aesthetic value of a stock image in the same way as a human would do.

Everypixel’s CEO Dmitry Shironosov said: “Designers, editors and experienced stock photographers helped us generate a training dataset with 946,894 positive and negative patterns. We wanted to create a technology that can measure not only aesthetics of stock images, but their commercial potential as well. This is the main difference between our smart filter and other solutions that exist today.”

The neural network is capable of estimating the visual quality of an image and applies a score to every file which, if working properly, could save many man hours of human image curation. The algorithm is currently in beta stage but you can already test it with your own images on Everypixel. We’re not so sure about the scoring, but the system already looks pretty good at assigning correct keywords. How did your images do? Let us know in the comments.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Federal judge dismisses case against Kentucky ‘Drone Hunter’

25 Mar

A federal judge in Kentucky has dismissed a lawsuit against William Meredith, a self-proclaimed ‘Drone Hunter,’ who shot down a $ 1500 drone that was flying over his property.

The pilot, David Boggs, sued Meredith last year claiming that his drone was flying in legal airspace as determined by the FAA and therefore was not trespassing. A 1946 Supreme Court decision asserted that a property owner’s rights extend up to 83 feet in the air.

US District Judge Thomas Russell ruled that federal court is not the proper venue for the lawsuit, noting that the FAA has not enforced any regulations regarding aerial trespassing, nor was the agency a party in the suit. Instead, the Judge said that the lawsuit should be litigated in Kentucky State Court under existing trespassing laws.

Boggs’ attorneys have not said whether he will appeal to a higher court – in this case, the 6th US Circuit. In the meantime, drone pilots should probably steer clear of Meredith’s property.

Via: Ars Technica

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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