Queen Anne’s Revenge

Edward Teach, better known as the pirate Blackbeard, terrorized the Caribbean and the North American East Coast in the early 18th century. Now a documentary filmmaker is claiming that the State of North Carolina is engaging in modern-day digital piracy. On Monday, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear the case brought by filmmaker, Frederick Allen, against state officials in North Carolina who he accuses of unlawfully pirating his footage of the wrecked pirate ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, which went down in 1718.

As reported by the LA Times: The case began with the discovery of the wreckage of Blackbeard’s flagship, which sank in November 1718 and was found by a private research group in 1996.

The discoverers hired Frederick Allen and his Nautilus Productions to film the wreckage and the salvage operation. His videos were copyrighted, but in 2013, North Carolina’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources began posting the videos online.

Allen and the state entered into a settlement that paid Nautilus $15,000, but according to the videographer, the state violated the agreement by converting his works into “public record” materials that were free to all. Allen sued the state for copyright infringement and won before a federal judge.

But the 4th Circuit Court based in Virginia ruled last year that the state and its officials were immune from such claims. The Supreme Court announced Monday it had voted to hear the case of Allen vs. Cooper in the term that begins in the fall.