IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—D.S.D.: Camera operator is between a rock and hard place in infringement lawsuit, (Feb 4, 2026)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

Without possession of the footage he shot, the cameraman cannot register his work nor sue for its allegedly unlawful exploitation.

A camera operator who shot footage for a small-budget comedy series could not bring a lawsuit to prevent the exploitation of his work because he did not have possession of the footage and therefore was unable to register his asserted copyright to that footage in order to meet the prerequisite to bringing a copyright claim, the federal court for South Dakota has held. The court, in rejecting the copyright infringement claim, also found that it had no authority to enter an injunction to force the film’s producers to turn over the footage to the cameraman so that it could be registered (Wallman v. Dominic Wieneke d/b/a Warwolf Productions, No. 4:25-cv-04036-KES (D.S.D. Feb. 2, 2026)).

The lawsuit was brought by Cade Wallman, a camera operator and filmmaker who resides in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. In 2022, Wallman alleges, he agreed to serve as a camera operator for a series that Dominic Wieneke and Zeke Richter were putting together. The series, entitled “Last Stop: The Series,” is a comedy series depicting the daily life of employees of the Last Stop CD Shop, a Sioux Falls retailer. (The decidedly home-grown series appears to have garnered only a modest number of views on the YouTube page for Wieneke’s production company Warwolf Productions).

Wallman eventually became dissatisfied with the direction of the series and left the production with a directive to the producers that they not use any of the footage that he shot. Early in February 2025, however, he became aware that the producers had used his footage anyway in publicly released versions of the series. Wallman therefore brought this lawsuit alleging copyright infringement and violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The producers moved to dismiss the claim, leading to this opinion.

Copyright infringement. The court dismissed the copyright infringement claim. The cameraman’s problem was a simple one: he shot all of his footage on equipment owned by the producers and never had possession of that footage himself. And without possession of the footage, he could not obtain registration of his asserted copyright in that footage—a threshold requirement for bringing a copyright infringement lawsuit under Section 411 of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 411(a). “The lack of copyright registration alone,” the court noted, “is sufficient to find that Wallman has failed to state a claim for copyright infringement.”

Nor was the cameraman entitled to an order directing the producers to turn over the footage to him so that he could obtain the proper registration. “Wallman fails to point to, and the court is unaware of, any caselaw that would permit the court to ignore § 411(a)’s command that ‘no civil action for infringement of the copyright... shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made,’” the court noted.

If any exception were to be carved out for people in the cameraman’s position, the court emphasized that it would have to be done by Congress.

DMCA claim. The court also dismissed the cameraman’s DMCA claim. Wallman alleged that the videographic images he created were used in the film “bear no indication of the author of the same and were integrated into a larger work so as to conceal the author.” But the problem for Wallman was, again, a simple one: because he never had possession of the footage, he never had the opportunity to stamp a watermark or other identifying information on it. “And without copyright management information present on the footage,” the court noted, the DCMA claim would have to fail “because there was no copyright management information for the defendants to knowingly remove or alter.”

Unauthorized use of likeness claim. The court also dismissed an additional claim brought by the cameraman under a newly enacted provision of South Dakota law that protects name, image, and likeness rights. The cameraman claimed that not only did he film some of the footage that was used in the movie, but that he also personally appeared in footage (presumably filmed by others) that was used in the movie. But with the copyright law claims out of the case, the court noted, there was no reason to continue to exercise jurisdiction under the state law claim, particularly since the case was only in its early stages.

Commentary. Wallman is not the first content creator to find himself in the predicament of being unable to bring a copyright lawsuit over an unregistered work that is in the possession of another. In one such case, Found. for Lost Boys v. Alcon Ent., LLC, No. 1:15-CV-00509-LMM, 2016 WL 4394486 (N.D. Ga. Mar. 22, 2016), the court found that in a well-founded copyright infringement claim, a plaintiff without possession of the unregistered works in question should be entitled to injunctive relief giving him possession of the works so that he could carry out the proper registration paperwork. But the same judge that issued that decision later found, in Taylor v. Mystery Ship, LLC, 649 F. Supp. 3d 1291 (N.D. Ga. 2022), that this route was now foreclosed by intervening court of appeals and Supreme Court authority. Courts in other jurisdictions have also declined to follow the case.

The Case is No. 4:25-cv-04036-KES.

Judge: Schreier, K.

Attorneys: William Hale (Goosmann Law Firm PLC) for Cade Wallman. Drew Driesen (Shultz & Smith PC) for Dominic Wieneke.

Cases: Copyright SouthDakotaNews