http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/arti...t_id=1003742308

Court Orders Corbis to Pay $834K in Two Lost Image Cases
March 26, 2008

By David Walker

UPDATED 5:55 PM March 26, 2008

The US District Court for the Southern District of New York has hit stock photo agency Corbis with two separate orders to compensate photographers for lost images in recent weeks. Photographer Arthur Grace won a $667,685 judgment on January 30 for the loss of 45,000 images, while photographer Chris Usher was awarded $157,121 February 29 for the loss of 12,640 of his images.

In both cases, the awards were the court’s estimates of income the images would have generated had they not been lost. That method of valuation differs from many other lost slide cases, which have based damages on estimates of the dollar value of the lost images.

In the Arthur Grace case, the court revised a 2005 ruling in which it had set damages at $472,000.

Grace covered major news events, politics, sports and celebrities during the 70s, 80s and 90s. He submitted the images for worldwide distribution through Sygma, the French news photo agency acquired by Corbis in 1999.

In 2001, Grace quit the agency and asked for the return of his images. Although Corbis returned many images, it was unable to account for thousands more, so Grace sued for damages in 2002.

The dispute was not over whether images were lost—Sygma’s inadequate and haphazard record keeping has been well established in other cases, and never denied by Corbis—but how many were lost, and what they were worth. Grace was seeking $100 million for the loss of 67,000 images, while Corbis said the number lost and their value was substantially lower.

In late 2005, the court estimated that 40,000 images were lost. It set damages at $472,000--$36,000 of that for lost income, and $436,000 in actual damages. (The 4,000 best images, the court decided, were worth $100 each; the rest $1). Grace appealed that award as inadequate.

Without ruling on the adequacy of the $472,000 award, an appeals court vacated it last May on the grounds that it was too arbitrary. The appeals court remanded the case to the trial court with a suggested method for re-calculating damages on the basis of the income the lost images might have generated for Grace.

Following that methodology, the trial court arrived at $677,685—$300,960 for lost income in the past, $237,728 for interest on that amount, and $138,966 for lost income in the future. The exact number of lost images was unknown, but both sides agreed to set the number at 45,000. The calculations for the lost income were based upon an estimate of what the images were generating annually before they were lost. That estimate was $16,233.

“[The case] was really related to outdated processes that Sygma had when we acquired them. We took steps to correct it, but obviously that didn’t happen overnight,” says Corbis spokesperson Dan Perlet.

Grace did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

The same court ruled in November that sloppy record keeping caused Corbis to lose 12,640 transparencies belonging to photographer Chris Usher. In late February, the court set damages at $100,000 for lost income—both past and future—plus $57,000 interest on income lost in the past.

Corbis recruited Usher in the spring of 2000, when he was covering major news and political events as a freelancer for various magazines. He left the agency in November 2001, dissatisfied with the agency’s performance. He asked the agency to return his images when he left, but Corbis was unable to locate about 25 percent of them.

Usher sued for damages in 2003. On the basis of testimony from Corbis employees, the court concluded that Corbis was liable because of “serious deficiencies in [its] tracking and storage practices.”

Usher sought $4.5 million in damages, while Corbis said damages should be $25,673.

The court rejected Usher’s valuation on the grounds that “proof as to the quality or uniqueness of the missing images is sparse and unpersuasive.” Instead, the court applied a similar method for calculating damages recommended by the appeals court in Arthur Grace’s case.

Specifically, the court instructed Usher to calculate his average monthly earnings while at Corbis, and then multiply that figure by 25 percent. He then had to extrapolate that product over a 30 year period to arrive at the estimated total income he would have generated from the lost images.

It was on that basis that the court arrived at the $100,000 judgment, plus interest.

man I hope Corbis loses some of my images.

I didn't work out the specifics, but it works out to $12 - $14 per image which doesn't seem like very much considering they were lost entirely.

No, the photographer DEFINITELY got screwed. I'd still take half a mil right now.

yikes!

I'd take half a mil any time

ok so I guess they were shooting trannines (speaking of which - anyone see preggers man on oprah?) in those days so He didn't have his own backups of his images... I doubt this would happen in the digital day ?