File-Sharing and Copyright Infringement
09/17/2008Due to the current popularity of Internet blogs and other areas of the web where content is controlled by any regular computer user, it inevitable that much of the information available may be a facsimile of the original source of the information. When the original information has a copyright or trademark, then the individual who took that information from its source and reproduced it for their own purposes did so illegally.
This is nothing new. Since the explosion of online music downloading in the early 2000s, the prevalence of copyright cases involving the Internet has skyrocketed. In May 2000, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dealt with Universal Music Group (UMG) Recordings, Inc. v. MP3.com. MP3.com had been preparing to launch a service called My. MP3.com or Beam-it , which would contain a copy of every single CD ever made for the purpose of allowing users to access their own private music collections from anywhere in the world. UMG alleged that because MP3.com was duplicating albums in their entireties, rather than excerpts, and for commercial purposes, the copying was not covered by fair use. In defense, MP3.com claimed that the unauthorized use of UMGs material (and material from other record labels and music publishers) could be justified by consumer protection concepts. Judge Jed S. Rakoff ruled that distribution of copyrighted music without permission of the copyright holders is infringement, even if the person who accesses the downloads already owns a copy of the music. And, with regards to the consumer protection claims, the court ruled that "stripped to its essence, defendant's 'consumer protection' argument amounts to nothing more than a bald claim that (the) defendant should be able to misappropriate (the) plaintiff's property simply because there is a consumer demand for it. This hardly appeals to the conscience of equity."
In February of the following year came the ruling for the high-profile case of A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. The ruling for this case made clear two points:
- Knowingly doing nothing to prevent infringement while reaping the benefits of the infringement (revenue from advertising, e.g.) is grounds for contributory infringement.
And,
- Simply using a file-sharing service (such as Napster, Pirate Bay, or LimeWire) may be considered infringement, as it involves both uploading and downloading works without permission.
The prominence of these and similar rulings has been encouraged even more by various recording artists including Metallica and Dr. Dre (who both filed suits against Napster), and also by an episode of Southpark that addresses the issues of copyright infringement and file-sharing services.
With so much file-sharing and uploading (both legal and otherwise) occurring constantly, and given the above rulings, it seems that the only way for Internet service providers (ISPs) to avoid problems is to adhere to Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a bill regarding copyright protection, that was signed into law by President Clinton in 1998. According to a safe harbor provision of Title II, the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA), ISPs are protected against copyright liability as long as they follow certain guidelines set forth in OCILLA, and quickly remove or block access to any material that may be an infringement of copyright law that is, if they receive notification of infringement from a copyright holder or copyright holders agent. This relates to the part of the A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. ruling about knowingly doing nothing about infringement it would appear that what you dont know cant hurt you.
However, with recent lawsuits against file-sharing sites like Googles YouTube and Veoh, the content industry (i.e., television, music, etc. industries) is expressing its distaste for the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA, but not entirely successfully. Last month Veoh used the provisions of the DMCA as defense in a suit that was brought against the video-sharing site in 2006 by adult entertainment company the IO Group (also known as Titan Media). Because the IO Group did not notify Veoh of the infringement before filing suit, the judge, Howard Lloyd of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, dismissed the case. There is currently a $1 billion copyright suit filed against Google by Viacom, the parent company of MTV and Paramount Pictures. The difference between this case and the IO Group, Inc. v. Veoh Networks is that Viacom sent more than 100,000 take-down notices to YouTube before filing suit. How will the ruling reflect or affect copyright legislation? We shall have to wait and see.
The abovementioned cases serve to protect the originators of copyrighted material, and to warn those who reproduce, use, and share that material. Be careful what you post!
