Thread by @Bill__Donahue

NEW: A federal appeals court just revived a #copyright case that accused a DC-area film festival of using a photo it found on the internet, overturning a ruling that said it was a "good faith" fair use of the image.

Here's the key quote:

The case was filed by a photographer against the organizers of the Northern Virginia International Film. He claimed they just plucked his image from a tumblr page and used it to promote the event.

Here's his image on the left and the festival page on the right.

The big thing about this case was the lower court's (sorta weird) decision that the photo was used "good faith." The trial judge factored that in when deciding that the film festival's use of the image was a legal fair use.

Here's that ruling:

That was an unusual finding. Evidence of bad faith can count *against* a finding of fair use, but courts have mostly said that the flipside -- evidence that you used a copyrighted work in good faith -- doesn't matter.

The photographer appealed that ruling to the Fourth Circuit, and the case has drawn a lot of outside interest, particularly from groups that said it was an overly broad interpretation of fair use.

Here's what one group, the New York Intellectual Property Law Association, wrote:

Today, the Fourth Circuit overturned that ruling.

In a big-picture sense, the court strongly cast doubt on the idea that good faith matters to fair use.

But it also rejected the ruling for an even simpler reason: There wasn't actually any evidence of good faith to begin with:

Here's the full ruling: docdro.id/kHtXo0A

Read our full story on today's ruling: law360.com/articles/11538…