On January 12, 2016, in Young-Wolff v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that a license granted by an authorized licensing agent can retroactively cure infringement claims asserted by the copyright owner against a third party, absent express language to the contrary in the license agreement ( (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 12, 2016)).

Photographer David Young-Wolff licensed the use of his photography through licensing agents, including PhotoEdit, Inc. Publishing company John Wiley & Sons, Inc., used certain of Young-Wolff's photos in its publications without permission, and later purchased licenses to use the photos from PhotoEdit.

Young-Wolff argued that the license agreements between Wiley and PhotoEdit did not extinguish his infringement claims as a matter of law, and that Wiley used the photos in ways that exceeded the scope of the licenses, including making unauthorized sales outside North America, printing more than the approved print-run, and allowing foreign-language translations.

Young-Wolff asserted that only the exclusive owner of a copyright can authorize a retroactive license, based on Davis v. Blige, 505 F.3d 90 (2d Cir. 2007). In Davis, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the co-author of a copyrighted work may not grant a retroactive license and thereby extinguish the infringement claims of other co-authors without their consent.

However, the district court found Davis distinguishable because this case involved only a single copyright owner. The court found that the two major policy concerns from Davis―predictability and the need to deter infringement―were not present in cases involving single authors because:

The court therefore limited the application of Davis to situations involving joint works owned by multiple co-owners.

The court also found that the specific license agreements at issue had retroactive effect because they were not expressly limited to prospective uses. The court found no reason to require licenses to expressly acknowledge and permit past use to be retroactive, and, since the license did not expressly refer to prospective or retroactive use, it was presumed to cover both.

Finally, the court found that PhotoEdit had actual authority to grant retroactive licenses because it was invested with unrestricted authority to license Young-Wolff's photographs on his behalf.

The court therefore granted summary judgment in favor of Wiley on Young-Wolff's infringement claims based on sales outside North America and the volume of the print run because they were allowed by the licenses. The court denied summary judgment on the unauthorized translation claims, however, because the license only specifically authorized "English" rights to the photos.