Muhammad Ali’s Photographer Wins $1.65 Million in Copyright Lawsuit

Muhammad Ali, The Fifth Street Gym, Miami Beach, 1978 | Photo by Michael Gaffney

Muhammad Ali’s personal photographer, Michael Gaffney, won a landmark copyright infringement lawsuit against Authentic Brands Group (ABG), securing damages totaling $1.65 million.

Update 10/19: This article has been updated to further explain the damages determined the case. An earlier version incorrectly combined possible damages: actual damages and profits and statutory. Instead, the plaintiff, Gaffney in this case, is entitled to either, not both.

Represented by Glaser Weil partner Robert Allen, associate Jason Linger, and paralegal Rebecca Feldman, award-winning New Jersey-based photographer Michael Gaffney filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York last month alleging that American management company Authentic Brands Group (ABG) and its subsidiary, Muhammad Ali Enterprises, had committed “direct, vicarious, and contributory copyright infringement” of 11 of Gaffney’s photographs of Muhammad Ali, captured when Gaffney was the famed boxer’s photographer in the late 1970s.

Gaffney and his legal representation claimed that ABG had used Gaffney’s images after the photographer’s contract with ABG had ended, showing Gaffney’s photos to millions of people and distributing them illegally to numerous companies, including TAG Heuer, for advertising campaigns.

After a six-day trial, the jury found ABG liable on 23 counts of copyright infringement. The jury also found that the defendants committed willful infringement, exhibiting “knowledge of or reckless disregard of Gaffney’s copyrighted works.”

Gaffney’s photos, captured in 1977 and 1978, were used on various merchandise and on ABG’s commercial social media accounts. Eight witnesses’ testimony and presented evidence satisfied the jury, and the ten-member jury awarded Gaffney the maximum statutory damages totaling $1.65 million, $150,000 for each of the 11 photographs. There were an additional dozen photographs considered in the case, but Gaffney was ineligible for statutory damages for them because the photos had not been registered until after the initial infringement began.

The jury also determined that Gaffney was entitled to $362,665 in actual damages plus $750,000 in profits, totaling $1.112,665. However, Gaffney, like plaintiffs in other copyright cases, must select between the two options. In this case, the statutory damages are much higher.

“The jury awarded $1.65 million in statutory damages. These are damages set by the Copyright Act. The usual range is $750 to $30,000 per work, but for willful infringement, the maximum goes up to $150,000 per work,” Glaser Weil associate Jason Linger tells PetaPixel. “In our case, the jury found willful infringement and awarded the maximum of $150,000 per photograph because there were 11 photographs by Gaffney that were eligible for statutory damages.”

Linger explains that the additional damages, totaling over $1.1 million, were awarded based on calculations concerning the gross revenue earned by the defendants using the infringing photographs and applying a royalty percentage.

“We presented evidence that Defendants earned gross revenue of over $8 million from their use of Gaffney’s photographs,” Linger says.

“This is an important victory for all photographers. Photographs are a form of intellectual property protected by copyright. This case sends a powerful message that a large company can still be held accountable if they misuse someone else’s works,” Linger adds.

Image credits: Featured image © Michael Gaffney