Opinion ID: 772795
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Was Davis's evidence too speculative?

Text: 30 While there was no evidence to support Davis's wildly inflated claim of entitlement to $2.5 million, in our view his evidence did support a much more modest claim of a fair market value for a license to use his design in the ad. In addition to his evidence of numerous instances in which rock music stars wore Onoculii eyewear in photographs exhibited in music publications, Davis testified that on one occasion he was paid a royalty of $50 for the publication by Vibe magazine of a photo of the deceased musician Sun Ra wearing Davis's eyewear. 31 On the basis of this evidence, a jury could reasonably find that Davis established a fair market value of at least $50 as a fee for the use of an image of his copyrighted design. This evidence was sufficiently concrete to support a finding of fair market value of $50 for the type of use made by Vibe. And if Davis could show at trial that the Gap used the image in a wider circulation than Vibe, that might justify a finding that the market value for the Gap's use of the eyewear was higher than $50. Therefore, to the extent the district court dismissed the case because Davis's evidence of the market value of a license fee was too speculative, we believe this was error. 32