17-1957-cv
Yamashita v. Scholastic Inc.


                               United States Court of Appeals
                                     FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
                                          ______________

                                            August Term, 2017

                      (Argued: February 2, 2018           Decided: August 28, 2019)

                                          Docket No. 17‐1957‐cv
                                            ______________

                               MICHAEL YAMASHITA, MICHAEL YAMASHITA, INC.,

                                                                      Plaintiffs‐Appellants,

                                                   –v.–

                                             SCHOLASTIC INC.,

                                                                      Defendant‐Appellee.*
                                             ______________

B e f o r e:

                                 POOLER, SACK, and CARNEY, Circuit Judges.

                                             ______________

        Plaintiffs‐Appellants Michael Yamashita, a professional photographer and sole
owner of Michael Yamashita, Inc., and Michael Yamashita, Inc. (collectively,
“Yamashita”), appeal from a judgment entered in the United States District Court for
the Southern District of New York (Forrest, J.) in favor of Defendant‐Appellee Scholastic
Inc., a textbook publisher, finding Yamashita’s statement of claims for copyright
infringement insufficient under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). Yamashita argues that the
District Court erred in: (1) dismissing his one‐count Complaint for infringement, which



*   The Clerk of Court is directed to amend the docket caption to conform to the above.
alleged that Scholastic exceeded the limitations of the licenses that it purchased for
Yamashita’s photographs from Corbis Corporation, a stock photography agency;
(2) ruling that Yamashita’s proposed amendments did not cure the Complaint’s defects
and therefore denying leave to amend as futile; and (3) denying Yamashita leave to add
to his Complaint four new, common‐law claims. We address Yamashita’s first two
arguments in this Opinion, and the third in an accompanying summary order. We
AFFIRM the District Court’s judgment.

       AFFIRMED.
                                        ______________

                              MAURICE HARMON (Christopher Seidman, Gregory N.
                                   Albright, on the brief), Harmon Seidman Bruss & Kerr,
                                   LLC, Grand Junction, CO, for Plaintiffs‐Appellants
                                   Michael Yamashita and Michael Yamashita, Inc.

                              EDWARD H. ROSENTHAL (Craig B. Whitney, on the brief),
                                   Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, P.C., New York, NY, for
                                   Defendant‐Appellee Scholastic Inc.
                                     ______________




PER CURIAM:

       Plaintiffs‐Appellants Michael Yamashita, a professional photographer and sole

owner of Michael Yamashita, Inc., and Michael Yamashita, Inc. (collectively,

“Yamashita”1), appeal from a judgment entered in the United States District Court for




1Although some of the transactions we describe took place in the context of Michael
Yamashita’s corporation as well as or in place of him personally, for ease of reading we refer to
both the individual and his corporation throughout this Opinion using the personal pronouns
“he,” “his,” and “him.” We note any difference where required.



                                                2
the Southern District of New York (Forrest, J.) in favor of Defendant‐Appellee Scholastic

Inc. (“Scholastic”), an international publisher of children’s books and textbooks. In 2016,

Yamashita sued Scholastic for copyright infringement, claiming that Scholastic

exceeded the use limits set in the licenses to Yamashita’s works th