Annie Leibovitz ‘Star Wars’ Photo Suit Revived by Appeals Court

Photographer Annie Leibovitz’s licensing agency wrongly lost its copyright lawsuit over an online magazine’s use of her picture of the “Star Wars” movie cast based on a misunderstanding of standing law, the Eleventh Circuit said.

Consequence Media Group Inc. shouldn’t have been granted summary judgment just because Leibovitz retained some exclusive rights in her assignment of rights to Great Bowery Inc., the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit said. For standing to sue, Bowery merely needed to show it had acquired just one of the many exclusive rights conferred by copyright law and that Consequence infringed that right, ...