Matthews

In Fleet v. CBS, Inc. (1996) 50 Cal.App.4th 1911 [ 58 Cal.Rptr.2d 645 ], the appellate court held that unpaid film actors’ claims for misappropriation of name, photograph, or likeness under section 3344 of the Civil Code were preempted by federal copyright law, where the only misappropriation alleged was the film’s authorized distribution by the exclusive distributor, CBS. Here, we must decide whether photography models’ misappropriation claims under section 3344 are preempted by federal copyright law, where the alleged exploitation was the unauthorized display, for profit, of the models’ erotic photographs on defendant’s Internet Web site featuring sexually explicit photographs.

Plaintiff KNB Enterprises owns the copyright to the photographs at issue in this case. Plaintiff concedes that any copyright infringement claim rests within the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal courts. ( 17 U.S.C. § 301 ; Young v. J. M. Hickerson, Inc. (1957) 9 Misc.2d 932 [ 170 N.Y.S.2d 168 ] [professional photographer’s suit for common law appropriation based on the unauthorized use of her copyrighted work was held to be preempted by federal copyright law].) Rather than pursue a federal…