Multiple Copyright Infractions?

[RENGUY]

I am looking for either case law or legal grounds to claim multiple infractions of copyrighted work. I recently discovered nine photos from a booklet I designed and produced on the clients web site. This was after I refused to grant them any rights to use the works for failure to pay for previous usage of one of the photos (I own all rights to the photos and registration of the copyrights was completed before the infraction). People have told me that since my works (photos) belonged to a compilation that all the photos and artwork will be considered one work and so their usage will be considered one infraction. I do not agree with this opinion. I beleive that their nine uses constitute nine infringments of the same work. Thank you for any information.

 

[ALawyer]

1 or 9 is largely irrelevant. You'll have to sue in Federal Court and the Judge will award statutory damages (I assume you won't have much of a case for actual damages in any event) based on the statute.

The Judge has huge discretion based on that statute. If there were 1 or 2 or 100 violations the judge would be unlikely to award more than a limited amount, so don't count on getting 9 times what 1 would net.