One of the more aggressive copyright infringement plaintiffs is David Oppenheimer. We wrote about him in March 2023 when we covered the first decision issued by the Copyright Claims Board, which dealt with a matter brought by Oppenheimer. However, most of his actions have been brought to federal courts across the United States, and David Oppenheimer has retained several different law firms in the past, including but not limited to SRIPLAW.
If you receive a demand letter from David Oppenheimer or on behalf of David Oppenheimer, or you have already been sued by him for copyright infringement, then feel free to contact us. We keep all communications confidential and make a sincere effort to respond as quickly as possible.
We have noticed an uptick in David Oppenheimer lawsuits as of the writing of this article and an overly aggressive approach to litigation, with high monetary demands and little desire to negotiate. Oppenheimer has filed hundreds of lawsuits against individuals and corporate entities that he believes have wronged him, with mixed results. One thing that has become abundantly clear is that David Oppenheimer has decided it is in his best interest to use the federal court system as a new and his most important revenue stream.
In putting together this article, we came across a July 2022 order and opinion in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina in David Oppenheimer’s lawsuit against Michael C. Scarafile et al. While the court recognized that David Oppenheimer is a professional photographer whose photos are available to be licensed for a fee or purchased as prints, it also found that the evidence showed that David Oppenheimer “could be considered an excessive filer of copyright infringement suits.” The defendants argued that David Oppenheimer employs tactics to make his photographs easily obtainable online “to conduct a business of copyright litigation” and indicated that he “earned more than $400,000 from litigation settlements and less than $5,000 from license and print sales in 2017.” The Court said that a jury should decide why David Oppenheimer registers his copyrights, whether he is “more focused on the business of litigation than licensing or selling his work” and whether he employs abusive litigation tactics, which would provide the defendants with an appropriate misuse defense.
Ultimately, as is true with most copyright infringement cases, this matter settled, which means that it never reached a jury to make a determination as to whether a copyright misuse affirmative defense was applicable. The amount paid by the defedants to settle the matter is not known.
What is known is that David Oppenheimer is no pushover, but he is also not someone who should receive whatever amount of money he demands. His law firms may act overly aggressive and adversarial in an effort to extract as much money as possible presuit. But fighting it out against a copyright troll like this in litigation should hopefully cause him to come to his senses. If not, then maybe he will eventually be tasked to try his case in front of a jury and not receive the judgment he had hoped for.
We are here for you should you have any questions or concerns.