Photographer's suit against Donnelley moved to federal court

A copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Vivendi's Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co. and R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. by a Chicago-based travel photographer was transferred to a federal court in Chicago.

Robert Frerck claims Houghton Mifflin infringed copyrights to photos he licensed to the book publisher by exceeding the terms of the license. He said he wasn't compensated for the unauthorized use of these photos. Co-defendant Donnelley is accused of infringing because it printed the Houghton Mifflin books, according to the complaint.

The complaint was initially filed in federal court in Pennsylvania and was transferred on Oct. 22, according to court records.

The defendants argued in an Aug. 24 filing seeking dismissal of the complaint that Frerck didn't state a case. They said he failed to assert that the copyright was registered for some of the photos he said were infringed.

The court hasn't yet ruled on the dismissal request, or on Frerck's Sept. 22 filing asking that Houghton and Donnelley be barred from publishing books containing the disputed photos.

The case is Frerck v. Houghton Miffling Harcourt Publishing Co., 1:10-cv-06897, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Chicago).