Photos in Apple’s Billie Eilish Film Are Fair Use, Court Says

Apple Corp. and a production company escaped a photographer’s copyright suit as a judge found the brief appearance of 10 photos in the background of a documentary about singer Billie Eilish was de minimis and constituted fair use.

Michael Kelley’s “Airportraits” photography exhibit appearing in the background of a Maori cultural group’s performance observed by Eilish in the film “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry” was too trivial for a reasonable jury to find infringing, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled Tuesday. In 15 cumulative seconds of screen time, no photos are predominant ...