LawMeme LawMeme Yale Law School  
LawMeme
Search LawMeme [ Advanced Search ]
 
 
 
 
Links: Harlan Ellison's Suit Against AOL Remanded for Trial
Posted by Steven Wu on Thursday, February 12 @ 00:27:42 EST Copyright
The Ninth Circuit has just decided Ellison v. AOL, Inc., No. 02-55797 (9th Cir. Feb. 10, 2004). (Link thanks to How Appealing.)

In 2000, Stephen Robertson, an AOL user, posted some of Harlan Ellison's short stories to groups on Usenet (which the court labels "a peer-to-peer file sharing network"). Because AOL provided its users access to these groups, Ellison sued AOL for vicarious and contributory copyright infringement. The district court found that AOL was not liable for vicarious infringement; it furthermore found that, although there was a triable issue of fact regarding contributory copyright infringement, AOL qualified for the DMCA safe harbor provision in 17 U.S.C. § 512(a). The district court therefore granted summary judgment for AOL.

The Ninth Circuit affirms in part and reverses in part. First, the Ninth Circuit affirms the district court's holding that AOL's liability for contributory copyright infringement is a triable issue. Second, the Ninth Circuit affirms the district court's holding that the evidence was insufficient to demonstrate AOL's liaiblity for vicarious copyright infringement because there was not enough evidence that AOL financially benefited from the infringing activity.

Finally, the Ninth Circuit reverses the district court and holds that there is a triable issue regarding whether AOL qualifies for the DMCA's safe harbor provisions:

[17 U.S.C. § ] 512(i)(1)(A) requires service providers to: (1) adopt a policy that provides for the termination of service access for repeat copyright infringers in appropriate circumstances; (2) implement that policy in a reasonable manner; and (3) inform its subscribers of the policy. It is difficult to conclude as a matter of law, as the district court did, that AOL had "reasonably implemented" a policy against repeat infringers. There is ample evidence in the record that suggests that AOL did not have an effective notification procedure in place at the time the alleged infringing activities were taking place.
In the event that a jury concludes that AOL does qualify for the safe harbor provision, the Ninth Circuit holds that AOL would then be protected by the safe harbor provision of 17 U.S.C. § 512(a), because Usenet postings stored for 14 days nevertheless qualify as "transitory digital network communications."
 
Related Links
· More about Copyright
· News by Steven Wu


Most read story about Copyright:
Top Ten New Copyright Crimes

Options

 Printer Friendly Page  Printer Friendly Page

 Send to a Friend  Send to a Friend

Threshold
  
The comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content.

Leges humanae nascuntur, vivunt, moriuntur
Human laws are born, live, and die

Contributors retain copyright interests in all stories, comments and submissions.
Everything else copyright (c) 2002 by the Information Society Project.

This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions
set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later.
The latest version is currently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/.

You can syndicate our news with backend.php

Page Generation: 0.201 Seconds