IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—E.D. Ark.: Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Foundation must face copyright claims involving famous photos, (Oct 23, 2025)

By Cathleen Calhoun, J.D.

The photographer’s work became famous after his death, but the question of who owns the rights to his photographic legacy could not be determined at this stage.

The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts must face copyright infringement and other claims brought by the estate of a photographer whose work became critically acclaimed after his death for accurately depicting mid-western life in America, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas has ruled in an order partially denying a motion to dismiss. The photographer, Mike Meyer, better known as Mike Disfarmer, died intestate in 1959. The photographer’s photo negatives, allegedly sold in 1959, were later donated to the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Foundation (Foundation). Fred Stewart, acting as personal representative of the estate of the photographer, claimed the estate owns those thousands of donated photographic negatives. The Foundation argued that the claims were time-barred. The court disagreed in part, emphasizing that the ownership claim could not be time-barred at this stage, particularly since the complaint lacked specific dates of infringing acts. The court also allowed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) claim to proceed, noting that its viability hinges on the unresolved ownership issue. However, the court dismissed claims of unjust enrichment and conversion (Stewart v. Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, No. 4:24-cv-00905-JM (E.D. Ark. Oct. 21, 2025)).

Sale of photo negatives. After Disfarmer’s death in 1959, a probate proceeding was filed by his brother on October 6, 1959, seeking appointment of U.S. Hensley as Administrator. Hensley filed a petition with the court on March 31, 1960, reciting the assets of the estate but photographs and photo negatives on glass plates were never mentioned. According to the affidavit of Peter Miller, Miller purchased the negatives from Joe Albright. Miller stated that Albright claimed to have purchased the negatives from Hensley in December of 1959 for five dollars. Miller transferred possession of the negatives to The Group, Inc. in 1976 and The Group transferred possession and ownership to the Foundation by gift in 1977.

Complaint. According to the complaint, Hensley “never sold, transferred or assigned any of the photographs or the negatives to Albright or to any other person or entity through any form of conveyance.” In 2021, a petition to reopen the estate was filed. An order granting the petition was entered on May 24, 2022. On May 14, 2024, an application to register each of the Disfarmer photographs listed in the amended complaint as unpublished works was filed with the U.S. Copyright Office, but registration was refused.

Stewart filed suit against the Foundation, claiming copyright infringement under the Copyright Act, vicarious copyright infringement under the Act, contributory infringement under the Act, violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), deceptive trade practices under the Arkansas Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act (ADTPA), and unjust enrichment and conversion under Arkansas law. The Foundation moved to dismiss the complaint, citing the statute of limitations and federal preemption under the Copyright Act.

Statute of limitations. The Foundation claimed that multiple counts in the complaint should be dismissed because they are barred by the statute of limitations. However, the ownership issue kept the court from dismissing the claims. The court reasoned that since the argument was made that Joe Albright did not obtain lawful possession of the negatives, there was no basis for the Foundation to contend that it has ownership in the photographs embodied in the negatives. “Accepting the Plaintiffs’ allegations as true as required at this stage of the litigation, the Court cannot say that Plaintiff has failed to plead a plausible claim of ownership for declaratory judgment,” the court wrote. Since the complaint did not contain the dates of the alleged infringing acts, the court found that it could not say as a matter of law that plausible infringement claims could not be established.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Since the court was unable to determine whether the statute of limitations barred the ownership claim, it was unable to determine whether the estate was entitled to damages resulting from the Foundation’s alleged violations of the DMCA.

State claims. For claims under the Arkansas Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act (AUDPTA), since the court was unable to say when a cause of action for violation of the ADTPA allegedly occurred, it did not dismiss the claim. However, the court found no allegation of fraudulent concealment and dismissed the claim for conversion as barred by the statute of limitations. On the unjust enrichment claim, the court granted the Foundation’s motion to dismiss, determining that “the only allegation is that the Defendant unjustly enriched itself by reproducing and/or licensing the Photographs or Negatives. Those claims sound squarely within the rights protected by the Copyright Act, and Plaintiff’s claim is preempted by the Copyright Act.”

In sum, the court granted the Foundation’s motion to dismiss as to the conversion and unjust enrichment claims while denying the dismissal of all other claims.

The Case is No. 4:24-cv-00905-JM.

Judge: Moody Jr., J.

Attorneys: Keith L. Grayson (Grayson & Grayson, P.A.) for Fred Stewart. Craig Joel Mariam (Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani LLP) for Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Foundation.

Cases: Copyright TechnologyInternet ArkansasNews