IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—C.D. Cal.: Online question-and-answer session transforms a 1960s fashion photograph, (Jun 22, 2026)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

A blogger who used the photograph as a backdrop to a broader story about fashion and the military made fair use of the work.

A fashion blogger who reproduced a 1960s-era photograph of a well-dressed woman and soldier in a train car made a transformative use of the work because she accompanied it with question-and-answer or Q&A about how “army wives” should dress when greeting their husbands coming back from war, the District Court for the Central District of California has held. The court, in granting summary judgment for the blogger, also found that she did not violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by failing to attribute the photographer because she did not know who took the picture and was not a habitual user of photographs without attribution (Sokolskyfilm, Inc. v. Lauren Messiah Inc., No. 2:25-cv-07884-RGK-MBK (C.D. Cal. Jun. 16, 2026)).

The lawsuit revolves around a photograph taken by the late Melvin Sokolsky, an internationally recognized photographer whose work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Louvre in Paris. In the early 1960s, he took a photograph showing a model inside a richly upholstered railway carriage facing a uniformed military man on the seat across from her. The photograph was created as part of a photoshoot for a fashion advertisement in McCall’s Magazine (although the particular photo itself was not used in the ad). After the photographer passed away, the copyright in the photograph eventually was assigned to a copyright management and licensing company called Sokolskyfilm, Inc. The company has become aggressive in asserting its rights in recent years, having filed several dozen copyright infringement lawsuits since 2024.

In this case, the company took on blogger and fashion stylist Lauren Messiah. The blogger posted the photograph on her blog, without attribution, in a post entitled Style Suggestions for Army Wives. The blog post featured the photograph alongside a “question and answer” dialogue in which an “Army Wife” asked how she should dress when greeting her husband returning from deployment. Although the blogger took the post down after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the rights management company, she failed to remove the URL to the photograph itself. The company then sued her for copyright infringement as well as violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

The fashion blogger moved for summary judgment, leading to the opinion.

Fair use. The court found that the blogger’s use of the photograph constituted fair use. Central to its finding was its conclusion that the blogger made a transformative use of the work. The photograph was taken from a published anthology of the photographer's work, the court noted, that contained “no written commentary concerning fashion or related creative trends.” By contrast, the court noted, the blogger published the photograph “alongside question-and-answer commentary providing fashion advice to a blog reader about what she should wear to greet her husband upon return from deployment.” Moreover, the court noted that the writing in the blog post “provides fashion guidance rather than commentary on what is already apparent from the [photograph].” Accordingly, the court reasoned, the photograph was “part of a broader work as published in the blog and accompanies fashion guidance, rather than being part of an anthology of the [p]hotographer's work.”

The court also found that the remaining factors also favored fair use. Although the blogger made money from her styling courses, coaching, and books, the court noted, there was “no evidence in the record of any revenue or commercial benefit from the blog.” As to the market effect factor, the court noted that there was no evidence that the blog post competed with or usurped the company’s licensing market for the work. Indeed, the court noted, the company’s licensing activities involved fine art, while the blog post “served a different market function.” And while it was true that the nature of the photograph was creative, and the blogger used the entire thing in its unaltered form, the court noted, that did not change the outcome given the transformative nature of the use and the lack of market impact.

DMCA. The court also granted summary judgment to the blogger on the DMCA claim. The company asserted that the blogger violated the statute by failing to attribute the work to the photographer. But the problem for the company, the court noted, was that under both provisions of the DMCA asserted in the complaint, 17 U.S.C. § 1202(a) and (b), a DMCA claim arises only if a defendant knew or had reasonable grounds to know that its actions would “induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement.” Here, the court noted that there was no such evidence. The record showed that the blogger found the image on the internet without altering the work or its filename and that she had no knowledge of the identity of the photographer. Moreover, the court noted, there was no evidence of any “pattern of conduct” to support finding intent—indeed, the court emphasized that she had given credit to another photographer in another blog post. Absent a pattern of conduct or systematic practice suggesting intentional omission of attribution, the court found that there was no basis to find intent to induce or enable infringement.

The Case is No. 2:25-cv-07884-RGK-MBK.

Judge: Klausner, R.

Attorneys: Michael P. Manapol (Law Offices of Michael P. Manapol) for Sokolskyfilm, Inc. Kumar Maheshwari (Mahesh Law Group PC) for Lauren Messiah Inc.

Companies: Sokolskyfilm, Inc.; Lauren Messiah Inc.

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