CBS doesn't care about optics...relatively very few people will read or get interested in this. Plus, megacorps do a gazillion worse things each day.

CBS is doing what it can to settle the first case, so maybe both sides will drop them. If that 24sports site had run it by CBS lawyers I'm almost certain they would have told him not to use his images. But in the end they were used so CBS has to defend itself.

To me using photos of a photog without permission is 100 times worse than posting a screenshot of a TV show but lawyers will milk it.

It's enough of a slam dunk and he's been an active enough critic on twitter that I really want to see an anti-SLAPP petition for pulling this.

Does 'bad optics' mean something like 'bad impression'? Sounds odd to me (although I'm not in the US)

The problem with that though is that it becomes a precedent (not in legal sense) and it might be tempting to just use images without paying the copyright owner, since you just need to settle for market value or a little more at the time that you're sued. It is a huge effort to go through media to make sure that your content is not being used without your consent and most independent people won't be checking it vigorously since they need the time to actually work.

I'm certainly not a lawyer, but my experience is that in copyright law - for better or worse - it generally doesn't matter if you believe you have rights to use some property, the only thing that really matters is if you actually have those rights. Applying that perspective CBS is absolutely in the wrong corner in that regard.

As for the photographer, we don't know the circumstances of his use, but as the article noted, it's not unlikely to be considered fair use. A single frame from a movie/series can reasonably be seen as a quote, whereas their wholesale use of the photographers entire picture clearly is not.

But whatever the circumstances in either case, CBS suing for a screenshot of an old movie/series seems to be a perfect way to get bad publicity, and no pity whatsoever if they would loose in court. Almost nobody wants it to be illegal/fineable to post screens and clips from TV-series, and pushing it that way is trying to get the cat back into the bag. It's part of our culture now, and that cat isn't going back anytime soon.

because it trivially meets factors for fair use. It is a very small portion of the copyrighted work and is not a substitute for the work. A couple screenshots from a TV show does not lower the market value for the TV show. TV Land isn't going to stop airing Gunsmoke because someone posted a couple screenshots online.