LOS ANGELES – A New York professional photojournalist is suing a Woodland Hills-based website operator over allegations it published photos taken on a TV set without permission.
Steven Sands filed a complaint on Aug. 24 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against ScienceFiction.com LLC alleging copyright infringement.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff is a professional photojournalist who personally shot photographs on the set of Netflix TV show "Jessica Jones," which were published under license by Getty Images in 2015.
The suit states the defendant published the photos in July 2015 on its website without licensing the photographs or with the plaintiff's permission or consent. The plaintiff alleges the defendant removed his authorship credit and copyright notice before posting them.
The plaintiff requests a trial by jury and seeks an order for defendant to remove the photographs from its website, an award for actual damages, statutory damages of up to $150,000 per copyrighted work infringed, with interest, attorneys’ fees, costs and expenses and such other just and proper relief. He is represented by Gregory P. Goonan of The Affinity Law Group in San Diego.
U.S. District Court for the Central District of California case number 2:18-cv-07464-DDP-SK