Grace v. Corbis-Sygma Convenes In Federal Court

The case photojournalist Arthur Grace filed against his old agent, Corbis-Sygma, more than two years ago finally went to trial this week in federal court in New York. Grace alleges that Corbis, which bought Sygma in 1999, lost thousands of his original images and the photographer is seeking millions of dollars in damages.

Much of the case hinges on the value of the images, with the plaintiff arguing that they were top-quality photographs of historical significance, and the defendant countering that they were merely run-of-the-mill shots no different than what hundreds of other photographers have.

The argument seems to put Corbis in an unenviable position. A company that makes money from licensing pictures in its archive, and therefore has a vested interest in getting the most value from those pictures, is here arguing the relative worthlessness of Grace's images.

In court on Wednesday, December 1, Grace testified about several trips to photograph former President Carter, actress Elizabeth Taylor, Pope John Paul III and several other news events dating from the mid-Seventies to the Nineties.

Edward Greenberg, Grace's attorney, argued that many of Grace's images are superior to those of his competitors, either due to the photographer's skill or better access. Grace, a former contract photographer for Time and Newsweek, shot several covers for those magazines over the years as well as several assignments for The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine.

In his cross examination, defense attorney Douglas C. Fairhurst got the photographer to admit he had duplicated several shoots in his accounting of the losses, an admission that could reduce the total number of lost slides the judge rules on. In questioning plaintiff's witness Arnold H. Drapkin, former director of photography at Time, Fairhurst raised the possibility that the magazine could be responsible for some of the lost images.

Greenberg used Drapkin's testimony to point out that the common language on delivery forms on images Sygma sent to Time specified damages of $1,500 per lost transparency.

Although the testimony is set to wrap up next week, Fairhurst said on Wednesday that Judge Denny Chin likely won't render a decision on the case until May 2005, and the full outcome of the trial, pending appeals, may not be settled for a couple of years.

But if Judge Chin's exasperation with the two sides' lawyers was any indication, a decision may be more imminent. At one point Chin called Grace v. Corbis-Sygma "the trial that seems like it will never end."