Opinion ID: 2959692
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Amount of the Work Used

Text: The third factor is “the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.” 17 U.S.C. § 107(3). A court must ask whether the defendant has “helped [herself] overmuch to the copyrighted work in light of the purpose and character of the use.” Peter Letterese & Assocs., 533 F.3d at 1314 (quotation omitted). This factor “weighs less when considering a photograph—where all or most of the work often must be used in order to preserve any meaning at all—than a work such as a text or musical composition, where bits and pieces can be excerpted without losing all value.” Fitzgerald, 491 F. Supp. 2d at 188; see Seltzer v. Green Day, Inc., 725 F.3d 1170, 1178 (9th Cir. 2013) (“[U]nlike an episode of the Ed Sullivan show or a book manuscript, [a drawing] is not meaningfully divisible.”). The district court did not err in finding the third factor was neutral as applied to the blog posts incorporating the Photo. Though ten blog posts reproduced the Photo in its entirety and without alteration, to copy any less of the image “would have made the picture useless to [Chevaldina’s] story” that Katz is a predatory commercial landlord. See Núñez v. Caribbean Int’l News Corp., 235 F.3d 18, 24 (1st Cir. 2000). As such, the third factor neither weighs for nor against a finding of fair use. 10 Case: 14-14525 Date Filed: 09/17/2015 Page: 11 of 12 D. Effect of the Use on the Potential Market for the Work The fourth factor is “the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.” 17 U.S.C. 107(4). The “central question” is whether, assuming that everyone engaged in the conduct of the defendant, the use “would cause substantial economic harm such that allowing [the conduct] would frustrate the purposes of copyright by materially impairing [the defendant’s] incentive to publish the work.” Cambridge Univ. Press v. Patton, 769 F.3d 1232, 1276 (11th Cir. 2014). The district court did not err in finding Chevaldina’s use of the Photo would not materially impair Katz’s incentive to publish the work. Katz took the highly unusual step of obtaining the copyright to the Photo and initiating this lawsuit specifically to prevent its publication. Katz profoundly distastes the Photo and seeks to extinguish, for all time, the dissemination of his “embarrassing” countenance. Due to Katz’s attempt to utilize copyright as an instrument of censorship against unwanted criticism, there is no potential market for his work. While we recognize that even an author who disavows any intention to publish his work “has the right to change his mind,” see Monge v. Maya Magazines, Inc., 688 F.3d 1164, 1181 (9th Cir. 2012) (quotation omitted), the likelihood of Katz changing his mind about the Photo is, based on the undisputed evidence in the record, incredibly remote. Since there is no evidence Chevaldina’s use of the 11 Case: 14-14525 Date Filed: 09/17/2015 Page: 12 of 12 Photo had or would have any impact upon any actual or potential market, the fourth factor weighs in favor of fair use.