Artisan House, Inc., hired a professional photographer, Steven H. Lindner, owner of SHL Imaging, Inc., to take pictures of its products for the creation of color slides to be used by Artisan’s sales force. Lindner controlled his own work and carefully chose the lighting and angles used in the photographs. When Artisan published the photographs in a catalogue and brochures without Lindner’s permission, SHL filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement. Artisan claimed that its publication of the photographs was authorized because they were works for hire. The court, however, decided that SHL was an independent contractor and owned the copyright to the photographs. Because SHL had not given Artisan permission (a license) to reproduce the photographs in other publications, Artisan was liable for copyright infringement.
IRAC method:
1. ISSUE: Identify the legal question which best addresses the problem posed by the fact pattern,
2. RULE: Find and then quote the legal rule(s) verbatim from the text which apply in the situation or fact pattern given and answer the question raised in the ISSUE section.
3. APPLICATION: Apply the legal rule(s) you identified in the RULE section to the given fact pattern. Your analysis should proceed in a step-by-step fashion and connect each point raised in the rule to the facts in the fact pattern.
4. CONCLUSION: Make a short conclusion based upon your analysis in the APPLICATION section. Be sure that your conclusion is supported by your discussion in the APPLICATION section.