# One Application, Thousands of Photographs: Alaska Stock v. Houghton Mifflin and Group Registration

> In Alaska Stock v. Houghton Mifflin (9th Cir. 2014), the court upheld a stock agency's database registrations that did not name every photographer or title, deferring to three decades of Copyright Office practice on registering collections.

Topic: Copyright  |  Author: Lidiia Levitska  |  Source: Intellectual Property Law (outsideipcounsel.com)
Canonical: https://outsideipcounsel.com/blog/alaska-stock-v-houghton-mifflin-group-registration/


In *Alaska Stock, LLC v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co.*, No. 10-36010 (9th Cir. Mar. 18, 2014), the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit confronted a question that determines whether stock photography agencies can practically protect their libraries: does a single "group" registration of a collection of photographs (one that does not separately list every individual author and title) validly register the component images? The court, in an opinion by Judge Kleinfeld, held that it does, reversing a district court dismissal and reaffirming a registration practice the Copyright Office had sanctioned for roughly three decades.

## At a glance

- **Case:** *Alaska Stock, LLC v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co.*, No. 10-36010, 747 F.3d 673 (9th Cir. 2014).
- **Court / date:** U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, decided March 18, 2014.
- **Disposition:** District court dismissal reversed; remanded.
- **Holding:** Registration of a collection (catalog/database) by a stock agency that owns the copyrights in the component photographs registers those component works, even though the application did not list each individual author and title, where the registration conformed to long-standing Copyright Office guidance.
- **Significance:** A leading appellate vindication of group/collection registration for high-volume visual-works businesses.

## The mismatch between the statute and the marketplace

Stock photography agencies face a structural problem. They license vast libraries (tens or hundreds of thousands of images) and it is commercially impossible to file a separate registration for every photograph. For decades the Copyright Office addressed this by allowing agencies to register large collections at once, in catalogs, CD-ROM catalogs, and databases, without enumerating each individual photographer and title in the application. Alaska Stock did exactly that, registering its images in collections and, in keeping with Office guidance, naming the agency as claimant and a representative set of authors rather than itemizing every contributor and work.

Alaska Stock licensed certain photographs to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for use in textbooks, subject to print-run and distribution limits. According to the complaint, the publisher exceeded those limits, using far more copies than it had paid for. When Alaska Stock sued, the district court dismissed, holding that the collection registrations were defective because they had not separately identified each author and title as, in the district court's view, the Copyright Act's collective-works provisions required. The dismissal threatened not just Alaska Stock's case but the registrations underpinning an entire industry.

## The statutory question: what § 409 demands of a collective work

The dispute centered on 17 U.S.C. § 409, which lists the information a registration application must contain, including the name of "the author or authors" under § 409(2) and "the title of the work" under § 409(6). For a compilation or derivative work, § 409(9) adds only an identification of any preexisting work or works that it is based on or incorporates, plus a brief general statement of the additional material claimed. Houghton Mifflin argued (and the district court agreed) that this required Alaska Stock to name every photographer and title for the individual images to be registered, so that an unenumerated photograph was simply not registered and could not support an infringement claim.

The Ninth Circuit rejected that reading. The court emphasized two points. First, Alaska Stock *owned* the copyrights in the component photographs; the photographers had assigned to the agency the rights necessary for it to register and enforce them. Where the registrant owns both the collection and its components, registering the collection registers the components. There is no separate "author" whose independently held rights are left unregistered. Second, and decisively, Alaska Stock had followed the procedure the Register of Copyrights had prescribed. The Copyright Office had, for some thirty years, accepted exactly this form of collection registration from stock agencies and instructed applicants on how to complete it. The United States filed an amicus brief supporting Alaska Stock, and the court concluded that denying the fruits of reliance on a longstanding administrative practice that reasonably construed the statute would be unjust.

## Deference to the Register and reliance over three decades

The opinion is, at bottom, a study in administrative reliance. The Ninth Circuit deferred to the Copyright Office's interpretation of the statute it administers, finding that interpretation reasonable. The court stressed that the procedure had been maintained for decades, that the United States had filed an amicus brief explaining and defending the practice, and that "[t]he livelihoods of photographers and stock agencies have long been founded on their compliance with the Register's reasonable interpretation of the statute." Their reliance, the court said, "should be honored." To invalidate the registrations now would retroactively strip protection from countless images registered in good faith according to the government's own instructions.

The decision also reckoned with an inconvenient precedent. In *Muench Photography, Inc. v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co.*, 712 F. Supp. 2d 84 (S.D.N.Y. 2010), a district court had reached the opposite conclusion, holding that collection registration did not register the individual photographs absent naming their authors. The Ninth Circuit declined to follow *Muench*, finding its reasoning inconsistent with the Copyright Office's long-standing position and with the practical realities the Office had accommodated. The split between the courts highlighted just how much turned on whether a court read § 409 as a rigid checklist or as a provision to be administered sensibly by the agency Congress charged with running the registration system.

*Muench* was not alone: the Ninth Circuit noted that it was declining to follow one published and several unpublished district court decisions, among them *Bean v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co.*, 2010 WL 3168624 (D. Ariz. Aug. 10, 2010), while other district courts, such as the *Panoramic Stock Images* cases in the Northern District of Illinois, had come out the other way. The Supreme Court would later echo the anti-technicality theme in a different register in *Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L.P.*, 595 U.S. 178 (2022), where a registrant's good-faith mistake of law or fact was held not to invalidate a certificate.

## Open questions

- **How far does ownership do the work?** The holding leans heavily on the agency's ownership of the component copyrights; the treatment of collections where the registrant holds only a license, or only some components, is less settled.
- **What survives the modern group-registration rules?** The Copyright Office has since formalized and revised group-registration options (including dedicated procedures for photographs); how *Alaska Stock*'s reasoning maps onto the current regulatory regime continues to be worked out.
- **Does the deference rationale outlast the practice?** The decision rests partly on three decades of reliance; its force where the Office changes course, or for works registered under newer rules, is uncertain.
- **How will other circuits come out?** With a district-court split already on the books, the validity of older collection registrations may yet draw differing appellate treatment elsewhere.

## Implications

- **Collection registration can reach components.** A stock agency that owns the underlying images can, by registering the collection, register the individual photographs, even without itemizing every author and title.
- **Reliance on Office guidance is protected.** Applicants who follow the Register's prescribed procedures should not have their registrations invalidated for failing a more demanding reading of the statute.
- **Document ownership.** Because the holding turns on the registrant's ownership of the component copyrights, agencies should keep clean assignment records establishing that they hold the rights they register.
- **Use current group-registration tools.** The Copyright Office now offers specific group-registration mechanisms for photographs; high-volume creators should register under the applicable current procedures.
- **Technical defenses face headwinds.** The decision is part of a broader judicial reluctance to let hyper-technical registration objections defeat meritorious infringement claims.

## Frequently asked questions

**Did Alaska Stock have to name every photographer to register the images?**
No. The Ninth Circuit held that because the agency owned the copyrights in the component photographs and followed the Copyright Office's prescribed collection-registration procedure, registering the collection registered the individual images without listing each author and title.

**Why did the court defer to the Copyright Office?**
The Office administers the registration system, had sanctioned this collection-registration practice for about thirty years, and had explained and defended it. The court found the Office's interpretation reasonable and was unwilling to upset registrations that an entire industry had relied upon in good faith.

**Does this case still control how I register photographs today?**
Its reasoning remains influential, but the Copyright Office has since adopted formal group-registration rules for photographs. Creators should register under the current procedures while drawing comfort from the decision's protection of good-faith reliance on Office guidance.

## Authorities and sources

- [Slip opinion, Alaska Stock, LLC v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., No. 10-36010, 747 F.3d 673 (9th Cir. Mar. 18, 2014) (U.S. Courts for the Ninth Circuit)](https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2014/03/18/10-36010.pdf)
- [FindLaw, Alaska Stock LLC v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company (9th Cir. 2014)](https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-9th-circuit/1660394.html)
- [17 U.S.C. § 409, Application for copyright registration (Cornell Legal Information Institute)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/409)
- [U.S. Copyright Office amicus brief, Alaska Stock, LLC v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Pub. Co.](https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/briefs/alaska-stock-llc-v-houghton-mifflin-harcourt-pub-co-747-f-3d-673-9th-cir-2014.pdf)
- [Loeb & Loeb, "Alaska Stock, LLC v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Pub. Co."](https://www.loeb.com/en/insights/publications/2014/03/alaska-stock-llc-v-houghton-mifflin-harcourt-pub__)