(2013)
JUAN LUIS GARCIA v. Spike Lee
Plaintiff JUAN LUIS GARCIA, an individual, is a graphic artist and photographer who has gained recognition for creating movie posters for some of the most popular movies in the last 10 years, including The Great Gatsby, 12 Years A Slave, Lincoln, 42 and Jobs.
In January of 2013, Plaintiff conceptualized, created and arranged the following movie posters to promote Oldboy:
Plaintiff provided Defendants access to the posters, and offered Defendants the opportunity to use them to market their film, with the condition precedent that they pay Plaintiff for such use. Defendants never paid Plaintiff.
In approximately November 2013, those movie posters, created by Plaintiff, were being used by Defendants, without Plaintiff’s consent, to promote the movie Oldboy on the internet and through various social media channels.
Defendants, and each of them, reproduced and displayed the posters created by Plaintiff without authorization from Plaintiff. Moreover, these posters bear a tag stating, “© 2013 Spike Lee,” and “© 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks”. This copyright attribution is false, as Plaintiff owns these posters, not anyone else, and the images were not owned or under license to Defendants. Moreover, Defendants knew this was false at the time these posters were created, but continued to reproduce and distribute this false information.
Judgment: SETTLEMENT. PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that all parties have reached a resolution of the entire case filed May 27, 2014.