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No Substantial Similarity in Photo Used in TV Movie

BY Sheri Qualters
January 31, 2013

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that two television production companies didn't violate a photographer's copyright when they used an image they created that was similar to his photo ' depicting an imposter, who called himself Clark Rockefeller, and his daughter ' in a made-for-TV movie. Harney v. Sony Television Pictures Inc., 11-1760. The appeals court affirmed a summary judgment ruling for Sony Pictures Television Inc. and A&E Television Networks LLC.

The case concerned plaintiff Donald Harney's photo of Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter and his daughter Reigh leaving a church in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood on Palm Sunday, March 31, 2007. The television companies used the disputed image in a movie titled Who Is Clark Rockefeller?

In June 2009, Gerhartsreiter was convicted in Massachusetts Superior Court for the July 2008 parental kidnapping of Reigh, and on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Gerhartsreiter has also been charged in California with murdering Jonathan Sohus, who disappeared at a time when Gerhartsreiter was renting a guesthouse at Sohus' mother's San Marino, CA, home.

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