Werner v. PRICEONOMICS, INC.
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:20-cv-04006
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Werner v. PRICEONOMICS, INC., Judge Gilliam entered a consent judgment awarding Jeffery R. Werner $80,040 for Priceonomics’s unauthorized use of a photograph.
Jeffery R. Werner received a $80,040 monetary judgment; Priceonomics, Inc. consented to that judgment. The parties were ordered to bear their own costs and fees.
What happened
Werner v. PRICEONOMICS, INC. concerned a photograph called the Snuggery Image, which Jeffery R. Werner owned and had registered. The parties agreed that Priceonomics displayed the image without authorization in an article on its website for about 40 months.
The parties agreed that Werner’s lost license fee was $26,680, based on an estimated fee of $667 per month. They also agreed to apply a three-times multiplier, resulting in a monetary judgment of $80,040, with each side paying its own costs and fees.
Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. entered the consent judgment after the parties jointly asked the court to enter final judgment on all pending claims. The judgment was based on the parties’ agreement that all claims and other matters had been fully resolved and settled.
The detailed version
- Werner v. PRICEONOMICS, INC. · No. 4:20-cv-04006
- Haywood Gilliam
- Aug. 4, 2021
Background
Jeffery R. Werner was identified as the owner of all rights to the photograph called the Snuggery Image. The image was registered under U.S. Copyright Registration Certificate No. VAu 1-119-1. The judgment states that Priceonomics, Inc. displayed the image without authorization in an article on its website titled “Inside the World of For-Profit Snuggling.”
Parties’ Agreement
The parties agreed that Priceonomics displayed the image without authorization for approximately 40 months. They agreed that, using an industry-standard software estimate, Werner’s lost license fee was $667 per month, or $26,680 total. They further agreed that a three-times multiplier was appropriate under the methodology identified in a prior related proceeding. Priceonomics consented to entry of a monetary judgment in Werner’s favor for $80,040. The parties agreed to bear their own costs and fees.
Ruling
The court stated that all claims and other matters had been fully, finally, and completely resolved and settled. On the parties’ joint motion for entry of final judgment, Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. ordered the consent judgment and entered the $80,040 monetary judgment in favor of Werner.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.