Case

It is fairly settled law that copying scholarly articles to include in a coursepack for students in a university class is not fair use.  E.g., Princeton Univ. Press v. Mich. Doc. Servs., Inc., 99 F.3d 1381, 1385 (6th Cir. 1996) (en banc).  In a recent case, a coursepack vendor had not obtained permissions or paid royalties.  It argued that nonetheless, it had not infringed, because it merely assembled a master copy of each coursepack and made it available to students, who were the ones who pressed the “copy” button on the copy machine.  Blackwell Publ’g, Inc. v. Excel Research Group, LLC, __ F. Supp. 2d __, 2009 WL 3287403, at *1-*2 (E.D. Mich. Oct. 14, 2009).  Denying summary judgment, the district court was unimpressed by this argument.  It held that the coursepack vendor was an infringer, regardless of whose fingers pressed the “copy” button, because it assembled the master copy, maintained it, improved its quality, gave it to students to copy, owned all the copy machines and paper, and provided employees to assist the students.  Id. at *4.  It also held that the fair use analysis does not turn on who pressed the “copy” button and that the coursepack vendor’s use was, as in prior cases, not fair use.

For the second time, a federal jury in Minnesota has found that Jammie Thomas-Rasset infringed copyrights by sharing songs using Kazaa in the only music download case brought by the recording industry yet to go to trial. The jury found that Ms. Thomas-Rasset infringed the copyrights of 24 songs, and did so willfully. The jury awarded damages of $80,000 per song (the range for willful infringement is $750 to $150,000 per infringement), for a total of $1.92 million. At the first trial in 2007, the jury awarded just $222,000, so the result of this second trial is significantly worse for Ms. Thomas-Rasset.

Apparently thinking that a strong offense was the best defense to copyright infringement claims for making copyrighted music available for sharing over the Internet, the defendant counterclaimed that the plaintiffs' (music and recording companies) investigation constituted trespass, computer fraud and invasion of privacy. The court granted Plaintiffs' motion to dismiss each of the above mentioned counterclaims.

On March 29, 2007, the Ninth Circuit issued a significant ruling in Perfect 10, Inc. v. CCBill, LLC, in which the Court interpreted significant aspects of the the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("CDA"), two federal statutes critical to Internet service providers and businesses involved with the hosting of content online.  The Court's ruling has significant impacts on the following areas of DMCA and CDA law:  DMCA Takedown Notices, what it means to be "Reasonably Implement" a DMCA Policy, the ccope of Section 512(a), Direct Financial Benefit & Section 512(c), "Red Flag" Liability under Section 512(c), and CDA Section 230 & Intellectual Property Claims.

(D.C. N.J. March 31, 2006)
The U.S. District Court of New Jersey held that owners of a flea market at which vendors sold "pirate" and "counterfeit" recordings were vicariously liable for copyright infringement and were also liable for contributory infringement.

545 U.S. 913, 125 S.Ct. 2764 (2005)
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held that one who distributes a device (in this case, peer-to-peer file sharing software) with the object of promoting its using to infringe others' copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties. The Supreme Court sent a clear message that businesses based on theft should not go unpunished.

No. CV-01-08541 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 27, 2006)
On remand from the Supreme Court, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the recording and film industry plaintiffs against StreamCast Networks Inc., finding overwhelming evidence of StreamCast Networks' infringing intent.

N.D. Cal.
Federal
Photographers' lawsuit against AOL alleging AOL's use without permission of plaintiffs' copyrighted photos.

No. 05 CV 8881 (S.D.N.Y. filed 10/19/2005)
Book publishers have sued to obtain an injunction against the "Google Library Project" on grounds of copyright infringement. Google is scanning books provided by the University of Michigan, and providing the scans to the University, while retaining copies for itself.

No. 1:05-cv-00546 (D.D.C. filed Mar. 17, 2005)
News agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) sued Google alleging copyright infringement arising from Google's posting of AFP photographs, headlines, and story leads on the Google News site, and removal or alteration of copyright information when doing so.

Intellectual Property High Court, Docket No. Heisei 17 (ne) 10049 (Oct. 6, 2005)
Intellectual Property High Court in Tokyo ruled against Digital Alliance, requiring it to pay damages to Yomiuri Online for copying Yomiuri's news headlines. The court held that while headlines do not offer much room for creativity, they are not categorically excluded from copyright protection.

392 F.Supp.2d 423 (E.D.N.Y. 2005)
Hammer entered agreement with Amazon, allowing him to sell his books on the website. An Illinois resident, Anthony Trendl, placed unfavorable reviews of Hammer's books on Amazon's website.

[2005] FCA 1242 (Federal Court of Australia)
Australian Federal Court judge Murray Wilcox held that file-sharing network Kazaa violated Australian music copyrights by authorising the copyright infringing conduct of users of Kazaa, and ordered Kazaa's owner, Sharman, to modify its software to help prevent it. Judge Wilcox observed that Kazaa did little to discourage piracy, despite knowing that most of the files swapped through Kazaa were copyrighted music.

422 F.3d 630 (8th Cir. 2005)
The Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit affirmed the district court ruling that found computer hackers liable for breach of their end user software license agreements and for violation of the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the DMCA. The district court had upheld the EULAs in question as enforceable contracts, rejecting various arguments by defendant that a contract was not formed through the click-thru process.

[2005] FCA 972 (Federal Court of Australia)
Australian Federal Court Justice Brian Tamberlin held that website operator and internet service provider (ISP) infringed record companies' copyrights by hosting a website that included hyperlinks to pirated music. Record companies sued Stephen Cooper, who operated mp3s4free.

[2005] FCA 193 (Federal Court of Appeal, Australia)
Foreign
Canadian Federal Court of Appeal upheld lower court decision that, in the early stages of litigation, Internet service providers (ISPs) need not identify subscribers that were accused of trading files in violation of copyright laws. Much of the evidence in support of releasing the names, the appellate court observed, was based on hearsay, "thus creating the risk that innocent persons might have their privacy invaded and also be named as defendants where it is not warranted.

403 F.3d 672 (9th Cir. 2005)
Federal appeals court held "that the noncommercial use of a trademark as the domain name of a website--the subject of which is consumer commentary about the products and services represented by the mark--does not constitute infringement under the Lanham Act." Bosley sued a dissatisfied former client, Kremer, who had registered the domain name www.bosleymedical.com and posted information highly critical of Bosley on a website using that address.

2005 WL 730681 (E.D. Pa. 2005)
Attig entered oral agreements to update and host two websites for the defendants, both of which the defendants had already created. Defendants eventually began to pay the web hosting provider directly, and had a different consultant move the web pages to a different provider.

125 S.Ct. 2764 U.S. 2005
Supreme Court
In a unanimous decision, the Court held that one who distributes a device (in this case, peer-to-peer file sharing software) with the object of promoting its use to infringe others' copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties. The Supreme Court sent a clear message that businesses based on theft should not go unpunished.

351 F.Supp.2d 1090 (W.D. Wash. 2004)
Independent, third-party vendors sold goods through Amazon.com's zShops online marketplace. Vendors posted Corbis's copyrighted images in zShops.

WL 2750253 (S.D. Ind. 2004)
Funeral Depot, an unauthorized dealer of Batesville Casket’s caskets, operated funeraldepot.com, on which it sold Batesville caskets and posted Batesville Service's photographs of the caskets without permission to do so.

(2004) Kyoto District Court
Tokyo University graduate school lecturer Isamu Kaneko, who developed and made available file sharing software Winny, appeared in court to face criminal charges of aiding in the violation of copyright law. Kaneko pleaded not guilty.

No. 02 C 4721 (1:02-cv-04721), Doc. 158 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 3, 2004) (preliminary injunction order)
Federal district court held that a software developer's use of an open source tool to help reverse-engineer software will prevent the developer from claiming rights in a modified version of the tool, but does not prevent the developer from enforcing its rights in the output of the tool, even though the tool is used to reverse-engineer software copyrighted by a third-party. Software developer Computer Associates (CA) used Bison, an open source program licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), to help reverse-engineer the source code of a copyrighted program.

2004 WL 783121 (M.D. Fla. 2004)
Federal
Extraction of non-copyrightable facts from a website using a data mining application did not infringe a website owner's copyright. Intermediate copying of the website to extract facts was deemed a fair use.

357 F.3d 1072 (9th Cir. 2004)
Court of Appeals
Harlan Ellison sued AOL for vicarious and contributory copyright infringement when Stephen Robertson posted some of his short stories to a peer-to-peer file-sharing network. The district court found that AOL qualified for the DMCA safe harbor provision in 17 U.S.C. § 512(a) and granted summary judgment for AOL.

240 F.Supp.2d 24 (D.D.C. 2003) and 257 F.Supp.2d 244 (D.D.C. 2003), reversed and remanded 351 F.3d 1229 (D.C. Cir. 2003), cert. denied 543 U.S. 924 (2004).
Federal
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued Verizon Internet Services seeking information on one of its subscribers who the RIAA suspected was offering a large collection of MP3s for download. Verizon refused to comply with an earlier subpoena for the information.

292 F. Supp. 2d 1023 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 2003); 292 F. Supp. 2d 1040 ( N.D. Ill. Nov. 2003)
Federal
The District Court denied the Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on its claim that the Defendant had violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by manufacturing a remote which could bypass the Plaintiff's "rolling code" and open garage doors made by the Plaintiff. The court denied the motion on two grounds.

Germany Federal Court of Justice (I ZR 259/00)
Foreign
A Publishing House sued the search engine Paperboy claiming that its use of "deep links" violated the Plaintiff's copyright and database rights, as well as the Unfair Competition Act. The Plaintiff argued that the Defendant's engine violated the Act because it enabled Internet users to bypass their homepage, and thus bypass the homepage's advertisements.

113 Cal. Rptr. 2d 338 (Cal. Ct. App. 2001); rev'd 4 Cal. Rptr. 4th 864 (Cal. 2003)
CA
The court reversed a lower court's decision to impose a temporary injunction aginst defendant Andrew Bunner's posting on his website of the source code for DeCSS, a computer program designed to defeat the encryption based copy system CSS. The court rejected the plaintiff's argument that the posting of DeCSS was a misappropriation of a trade secret.

334 F.3d 643 (7th Cir. 2003)
Federal
The Seventh Circuit has upheld a district court's injunction against the Madster file-swapping network. Aimster had argued that it had no obligation to block illegal file swapping because it was unaware of the specific copyright violations.

1 Cal Rptr. 3d 32 (Cal. 2003)
Federal
The California Supreme Court ruled that former Intel employee Ken Hamidi did not "trespass" on Intel's computer system when he sent email messages to Intel employees at work. The case stems from e-mail messages sent by Hamidi, a former Intel employee, to thousands of Intel employees worldwide.

2003 WL 21511750 (D. Haw. 2003), aff'd 391 F.3d 1000 (9th Cir. 2004)
Federal
The US District Court for the District of Hawaii ruled on the takedown provision of the Digitial Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). The MPAA sent a takedown notice to the ISP Flexnet, erroneously believing that the plaintiff, Michael Rossi, was offering illegal movie downloads on his website.

(Dist. Va. 2003)
Federal
A federal court has sentenced a man to five months imprisonment for violating the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). David Rocci used his website to sell modification chips that allowed users to play pirated games on Microsoft's Xbox game console.

filed (2003)
Federal
Lending Tree has filed suit against Gator Corp. for flashing pop-up ads of competitors when visitors access its site. Lending Tree claims that the pop-up ads have damaged Lending Tree's brand and infringed on its copyright and trademark.

Cause No. 067-194022-02 (Texas, 67th Dist., Mar. 8, 2003)
TX
A Texas state court granted American Airlines' application for temporary injunction against software vendor FareChase on grounds of trespass to chattels and misappropriation. The court also found that FareChase was in breach of contract, enforcing an 'if you use this site you agree' terms of service statement on American Airlines' Web site, AA.com.

Lillehammer City Court (Norway, 2003)
Foreign
A Norwegian court ruled that Frank Bruvik violated the Norwegian Copyright Act by developing a version of Napster. Although Bruvik was found to have violated the Copyright Act, the court determined that he was not liable for contributory infringement because users had downloaded songs for their private use, which is allowed under the Copyright Act.

Tokyo District Court (2003), aff'd Tokyo High Court (2005)
Foreign
The Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) filed suit against Japan MMO alleging copyright infringement. Japan MMO provides a Napster like service that allows file swapping over the Internet.

In a decision that benefits copyright owners throughout the United States, the Supreme Court recently upheld the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (the "Act"). The Act lengthened the term of copyright protection by 20 years in most cases.

Provincial Court of Barcelona (2003)
Foreign
A Spanish court ruled on a Spanish version of "Napster," which offered downloadable music online. Ediciones Musicales Horu sued Weblisten for copyright infringement under the Spanish Intellectual Property Act.

[2002] EWCA Civ 1702 (United Kingdom, 2003)
Foreign
The Court of Appeal has ruled that a patent could be infringed in the United Kingdon even though the patent-infringing system was running on an offshore server. The defendant supplied its customers with a CD that allows them to access the defendant's gaming system running on servers in Antigua.

(Norway, 2002)
Foreign
A Norwegian court ruled on the right to online publication. Loberg, a freelance journalist, submitted two columns to the newspaper Dagbladet for publication.

(C.D. Cal. 2003)
Federal
A federal district court has ruled that California has jurisdiction over Sharman Networks, the Australian parent company of Kazaa, the online file swapping service. Sharman Networks had filed a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

Germany-District Court of Munich
Foreign
The court held that Google could not be held liable for trademark infringement where an advertiser uses the trademark in a keyword.

(Pub. Law - 107-321)
Federal
President Bush signed into law the Small Webcaster Settlement Act of 2002, which grants copyright holders the option to grant small webcasters reduced revenue royalty rates to stream music online.

320 F.3d 1317 (Fed. Cir. 2002)
Federal Circuit
A Federal Appeals Court has ruled that a shrinkwrap license may ban reverse engineering of software. Bowers developed a software program and sold the product with a shrinkwrap licence which contained a prohibition against reverse engineering.

Federal Supreme Civil Court (Germany, 2002)
Foreign
The German Federal Supreme Civil Court ruled that a copyright license to publish photos in print does not extend to a CD-ROM version. An organization of freelance photographers granted the defendant an oral license to publish their photos in a magazine.

216 F. Supp.2d 1051 (N.D. Cal. 2002)
Federal
A federal court ruled on a shrinkwrap licensing agreement. Adobe sells eductaional software under a licensing agreement titled "reseller agreement" for its authorized dealers.

No. 02C1906 (N.D. Ill. 8/20/02)
Federal
A federal court ruled on whether the Copyright Act preempts state claims. Higher Gear, a software developer, licensed its program to the defendant.

(D. Mass 2002)
Federal
The ACLU, on behalf of Ben Edelman, has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Edelman, sued N2H2 claiming he has First Amendment and fair use rights to examine the full list of sites contained in N2H2's Internet blocking program.

Munich Upper Court (Germany, 2002)
Foreign
A German court ruled on the European Union's "Database Directive." Mainpost, a German newspaper sued Newsclub, a search engine, claiming that Newsclub violated the EU law by searching through and directly linking to Mainpost's news stories in its database.

[2002] FCA 906 (26 July 2002)
Foreign
An Australian federal court ruled on "mod chips" used to enable Sony's PlayStations to play illegally copied games. Sony brought suit against Ed Stevens alleging copyright infringement under the Australian Copyright Act of 1968 for installing "mod chips" on Sony PlayStations.

State law, not federal, governs the perfection and priority of security interests in unregistered copyrights, according to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Aerocon Engineering Inc. v. Silicon Valley Bank clarified this source of debate and confusion.

(E.D. Va. 2002)
Federal
A federal court issued a temporary injunction in a copyright infringement case involving targeted pop-up advertising. The Washington Post, Dow Jones, and eight other publishers sued Gator alleging that Gator's unauthorized ads violate their copyright and trademark rights by altering the intended display of their websites.

Filed (C.D. Cal. 2002)
Federal
A group of persons who own Replay TV 4000 digital video recorders have filed suit against the entertainment industry and broadcast networks seeking a declaratory judgment that their use of the Replay TV recorders does not violate defendant's copyrights. The plaintiffs are arguing that the recorders have "substantial non-infringing uses" and should be considered lawful under Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios.

No. 99-40632 (5th Cir. 2002)
Federal
The Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed a district court ruling concerning the copyright of model building codes. The Southern Building Code Congress International (SBCCI), an organization that develops model building codes, sued Veeck for copyright infringement after he had posted the model codes on his non-profit website.

213 F. Supp. 1146 (C.D. Cal 2002)
Federal
A federal court ruled on contributory and vicarious liability. Plaintiff Perfect 10 is a publisher of adult images in magazines.

Filed (S. D. Cal. 2002)
Federal
Homestore.com filed suit against Bargain Network for unauthorized use of its real estate listings. Homestore alleges that Bargain Network is displaying Homestore's real estate listings on its website.

Paris Court of Appeal (France, 2002)
Federal
The Paris Court of Appeals held that databases composed of photographs and biographies in the public domain should be granted intellectual property protection because the creator had to choose its contents. The rights arise under the EU Database Directive, which France adopted in 1998.

Appeals Court (Netherlands, 2002)
An appeals court in the Netherlands has reversed a lower court ruling concerning a company that provides Internet file trading software. Kazaa BV distributes the FastTrack file swapping software used by Grokster.

CV 00-04321 FMC (RCx) (C.D. Cal. 2002)
Federal
A federal court ruled on the applicability of the safe harbour provision of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). The plaintiff alleged that large portions of his copyrighted works were posted on Usenet without his authorization.

[2001] FCA 1458 (Australia, 2001)
Foreign
Quanta Software was the exclusive licensee for EUNICE, an accounting program. Quanta entered into a dealership agreement with Computer Management Software (CMS), under which CMS was allowed access to the source code in order to resolve any customer problems.

188 F. Supp. 2d 398 (S.D.N.Y. 2002)
Federal
Getaped.com, a website advertising motorized scooters, sued a competitor, alleging copyright infringement in connection with the creation of a competitor's website.

(N.D. Cal. 2002)
Federal
Elcomsoft, a software company, faces charges that it violated the Digital Milenium Copyright Act (DMCA) by selling programs that allow people using Ebook reader to make digital copies of those books. Elcomsoft has presented a novel argument in its defense, that the federal court does not have jurisdiction over activities that occur on the Internet.

Court of First Instance of Barcelona (Spain, 2002)
Foreign
A Spanish court has ruled that the sale of any recordable CD is subject to a copyright fee. The defendant, Traxdata, argued that its disks were intended for the recording of computer files and not subject to the payment of copyright fee.

280 F.3d 934 (9th Cir. 2002); 336 F.3d 811 (9th Cir. 2003)
Federal
Arriba Soft operates a search engine that displays its results in the form of small pictures (thumbnails), and a user may also view a larger version of the same picture within the context of Arriba's website. Arriba obtained its thumbnail images by copying images from other websites.

2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22520 (N.D. Cal. 2001)
Federal
A federal district court ruled that the unauthorized use of a plaintiff's website is sufficient to establish a claim for trespass to chattels. Plaintiff, Oyster Software, is a software developer that owns the rights to Formspro.

No. BC 266625 (Filed, L.A. Super. Ct., Jan. 2002)
CA
MP3.com has filed a legal malpractice suit against its former outside counsel, Cooley Godward LLP. MP3.com is a service that allows users to download songs, provided they have a copy of the compact disc on which the work appeared.

113 F. Supp. 2d 782; 998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12060 (N.D. Ill. 1998)
Federal
A federal court found copyright infringement even though the plaintiff had already posted the software on the Intenet for free limited distribution for non-commercial use. Storm sued Software of the Month Club (SOMC) for, inter alia, copyright infringement after it offered Storm's computer programs in its monthly offering to its members.

847 F.2d 255 (5th Cir. 1988)
Federal
Vault, a producer of computer disks that prevented unauthorized duplication of programs placed on them, sued Qaid for copyright infringement. Qaid's product contained a feature called RAMKEY, which unlocked the protective device found on Vault's disks.

Court of Appeals in Berne (Switzerland, 2002)
Foreign
A Swiss court found that an electronic clipping service had committed copyright infringement. Swiss newspaper publishers sued a company that provided its customers with electronic media clippings.

Amsterdam District Court (Netherlands, 2001)
Foreign
The Dutch music licensing body, Buma/Sterma, sued the Dutch Internet portal Kazaa for enabling illegal music file swapping. The Amsterdam district court found that Kazaa's file sharing software encouraged copyright infringement and ordered Kazaa BV to stop the distribution of its software.

Dist. Ct. of Jyvaskyla (Finland, 2002)
Foreign
A Finnish court ruled that MP3 file sharing violated the Finnish Copyright Act. A college student in Finland was sharing MP3 music files through a peer to peer network called CuteMX, which allows users to connect directly to one another.

VL B-1943-99 and VL B-2089-99 (Western High Court, Denmark, 2001)
Foreign
A Danish court held that merely linking to a website that contains music files that were uploaded without the consent of the copyright owner amounts to copyright infringement. Two children whose personal homepages linked to sites containing unauthorized music files were found to be liable for copyright infringement under the Danish Act on Intellectual Property.

Filed (N.D. Cal., Nov. 2001)
Federal
The three major networks, NBC, CBS, and ABC, have filed suit in federal district court against SONICblue alleging that its' product ReplayTV4000 will violate their copyrights by allowing users to distribute copies of the programs over the Internet. ReplayTV4000 is an Internet ready personal digital video recorder.

No. 00-9185 (2d Cir. 2001)
Federal
The 2d Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court order that prohibits the publishing or linking of DeCSS, computer program that decodes DVD encryption. The court agreed with the district court that computer code is speech and entitled to protection under the First Amendment; however, the court also noted that it is entitled to less protection than "expressive" speech such as poetry.

Tokyo District Court (Japan 2002)
A Japanese court ordered an online music file sharing service to suspend operation. The RIAJ had filed suit against MMO claiming that the file swapping service violated the copyrights in the music files.

2002 FCA 166 (Canada, 2002)
Foreign
A Canadian federal court has dismissed an appeal to a previous ruling that ISPs, unless acting strictly as conduits, must pay royalties for music downloaded over the Internet by their subscribers. Various ISPs in Canada sought immunity from paying royalties for downloaded music under Section 2.

Beijing No. 2 Intermediate Ct. (China, 2002)
Foreign
A Chinese court ruled on copyright infringement of online pictures. Sina and Sohu are China's two top Internet portals. Sina sued Sohu claiming that Sohu was illegally pirating articles and pictures from its website.

Filed (Netherlands 2001)
Foreign
The three main Dutch newspaper publishers, PCM, Het Financieele Dagblad and De Telegraaf, have filed a lawsuit against three electronic newspaper cutting services. The clipping services scan for newspaper articles stored in databases, and then charge customers a fee to access those databases.

2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19135 (Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation)
Federal
A number of lawsuits against Aimster were consolidated in the Northern District of Illinois. The plaintiffs include groups of songwriters, publishers, and media companies who are suing the file sharing company Aimster for copyright infringement.

Ontario Super. Ct. of Justice (Canada, 2001)
Foreign
A Canadian court ruled that freelance writers retain copyrights in articles that are written for newspapers and then later put into online databases. Plaintiff, Robertson, was a freelance writer that contributed works to national newspapers in Canada.

No. 01-09923 (SHx) (C.D. Cal. 2001)
Federal
A group of songwriters and music publishers have filed suit in federal district court against three peer to peer music services alleging copyright infringement. The services all employ FastTrack, a file sharing technology that allows users to share any kind of digital file.

164 F. Supp. 2d 688; 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15401 (D. Md. 2001)
Federal
The court analyzed the the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbour concerning infringing material that is posted or transmitted through an online service provider. LoopNet is an internet company that offers a service for real estate brokers to post real estate listings.

filed in District of Oregon (Nov. 2001)
Federal
Verance filed a lawsuit in federal district court charging Digimarc with violating antitrust and unfair competition laws. Among other things, Verance alleges that Digimarc illegally submitted Verance's digital watermarking technology to the Video Watermarking Group (VWM), a standards-setting body.

Case No. 01CV-9358 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 31, 2001)
Federal
Paramount and a number of other media conglomerates brought suit against ReplayTV for vicarious copyright liability. The lawsuit challenges features of ReplayTV's newest digital video recorder, Replay TV 4000.

FCA 612 (Australia 2001)
Foreign
An Australian court found that when Desktop Marketing Systems (DMS) copied Telstra's directories onto CD-ROM it infringed on Telstra's intellectual property rights. Under Australia's laws, an original work is afforded copyright protection.

(Tokyo Dist. Court, 2001)
Foreign
The Tokyo District Court issued an injuction blocking the use and distribution of software. Cybozu sought an injuction to stop the use and distribution of iOffice2000 and iOffice 3, both NeoJapan products.

(Tokyo Dist. Court, 2001)
Foreign
The Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun and twelve novelists filed suit in Tokyo District Court against Internet home page operator Comet Hunter for copyright infringement. The plaintiffs accuse Comet Hunter of sending email summaries of business publications to paying customers and then posting them on Comet Hunter's home page.

2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14420 (C.D. Cal. 2001)
Federal
The Federal District Court dismissed a suit against eBay alleging copyright infringement. Robert Hendrickson filed suit against eBay under the civil provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).

244 F.3d 1267 (11th Cir. 2001)
Federal
The 11th Circuit ruled that a CD-Rom set was not a revision of a prior collective work,, but instead an entirely new product. Jerry Greenberg's photographs had been used by National Geographic in its magazine.

171 F. Supp. 2d 1075 (C.D. Cal. 2001)
Federal
A US District Court held that a transaction in which a software developer transfers copies of software to a retailer is not a licensing, but rather a sale of goods, despite the existence of a shrinkwrap agreement stating otherwise. Adobe alleged that Softman had distributed unauthorized software of the developer, including breaking apart collections and distributing individual pieces as single products.

Unknown
Copyright.net, a music publishing company that represents about 750 songwriters and publishers, has filed suit against MP3.com for copyright infringement.

91 Cal. App. 4th 409 (Cal. Ct. App. 2001)
CA
The California court of appeals affirmed a lower court ruling finding that the state has jurisdiction over Matthew Pavlovich, a programmer who had posted DeCSS, a program designed to defeat DVD encryption, on his website. Pavlovich resides in Texas and claims that he has no contacts with California.

153 F. Supp. 2d 763 (E.D. Pa. 2001)
Federal
A federal judge upheld a ruling by federal copyright regulators that broadcast radio stations must pay new royalties when they broadcast music over the Internet. The plaintiff radio station operators had brought an action seeking judicial review of the copyright office's final ruling, which limited the exemption to the public performance right to over-the-air transmissions (17 U.S.C.S. § 114(d)(1)(A)).

150 F. Supp. 2d 613 (S.D.N.Y. 2001)
Federal
A federal judge ruled that Random House's standard book contracts with three authors did not bar e-book publisher RosettaBooks from marketing electronic versions of their books. The court held that under the Random House contract, "the right to print, publish and sell the work[s] in book form.

filed (S.D.N.Y. 2001)
Federal
The Authors Guild filed a class action lawsuit against the New York Times for copyright infringement. The plaintiff freelance writers allege that the Times used their work in electronic databases, despite never having received permission from the writers.

(France, 2001)
Foreign
A French court ruled on a "deep linking" case. An online employment site brought an action against Kelijob, an employment search engine alleging copyright infringement and unfair competition.

(The Netherlands, 2001)
Foreign
Kranten.com used headlines from PCN articles as links to the PCN website. PCN sued alleging copyright infringement and infringement of its database rights.

121 S. Ct. 2381 (2001)
Federal
The US Supreme Court held that The New York Times and other publishers infringed the copyrights of freelance writers. The plaintiffs alleged that their copyrights had been infringed by the inclusion of their articles in electronic databases without permission.

Ladgericht Stuttgart state court (Germany, 2001)
Foreign
A German court ruled that Hewlett-Packard GmbH must pay intellectual property fees on CD burners retroactively for the last three years. The case, which Hewlett-Packard is fighting on behalf of all hardware makers, seeks to determine whether purchasers of CD burners must pay a flat fee to offset losses sustained by artists whose work is duplicated.

First Instance Court (Brussels, Belgium 2001)
Foreign
Belgian ISP Euregio.net has filed suit against Women.com, a US based Internet portal, alleging copyright infringement. Euregio.net alleges that InternetHoroscopes.

filed (D.N.J. 2001)
Federal
Edward Felten, a Princeton University computer scientist, filed a complaint in federal court seeking to establish his right to publish research on weaknesses in SDMI, the music industry's copyright protection scheme. Felten is asking the court to overturn the "anti-circumvention" clause of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which prohibits the distribution of anything that undermines copyright protection schemes.

filed (N.D. Cal. 2001)
Federal
A number of webcasters and trade groups have sued the RIAA over licensing for online music services. The lawsuit is in response to a request by the RIAA, which asked the US Copyright Office to disqualify several "consumer influenced" Internet broadcasting companies from a royalty arbitration.

German Trial Court (March 29, 2001)
Foreign
A German Court has decided not to charge Yahoo with criminal violations stemming from the posting of Nazi memorabilia on the Yahoo auction site. Last year a similar lawsuit in France forced Yahoo to begin removing Nazi memorabilia from its site.

Case #: 4:2001cv00001 (S.D.N.Y. 2001)
Federal
MP3Board has filed suit against RIAA seeking damages for a ten-day blackout period during which MP3Board’s ISP denied access to the MP3 search engine after receiving a notice of alleged copyright violations from RIAA. MP3Board is a search engine that provides links to websites containing MP3s.

(Germany, 2001)
Foreign
In response to a decision by a Bavarian State Court in 2000, AOL appealed the decision which had found copyright violations in favor of the plaintiff Hit Box Software. The appeals court agreed and found that copyright violations had occurred when some of its music files were exchanged on AOL servers.

CASE #: 01-CV-2315 (C.D. Cal. 2001)
Federal
Zappa Family Trust filed a copyright infringement suit against EMusic. The suit alleges EMusic distributed Frank Zappa songs without licensing the underlying publishing rights from the Zappa Family Trust.

Filed No: 01-CV-939 (N.D. Cal. 2001)
Federal
EMusic.com has filed suit against Napster for alleged copyright infringement stemming from the trading of legally licensed EMusic tracks on Napster.

Filed CASE #: 01-CV-926 (N.D. Cal. 2001)
Federal
The National Academy of Arts and Sciences has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Napster, alleging infringement of copyrights held in the live performances aired during the 2001 Grammy Awards.

2001 BCSC 156 (Canada, 2001)
Foreign
The British Columbia Automobile Association (BCAA) sued the union for various claims relating to the union's website. Striking union members had established a website that incorporated various design elements as well as the plaintiffs registered trademark.

114 F. Supp. 2d 896 (N.D. Cal. 2000). aff'd in part rev'd in part, 239 F.3d 1004 (9th Cir. 2001); aff'd 284 F.3d 1091 (9th Cir. 2001)
Federal
This was an appeal of the preliminary injunction, issued in favor of A&M Records Et al., enjoining Napster from "engaging in or facilitating others in copying, downloading, uploading, transmitting, or distributing plaintiff's copyrighted musical compositions, and sound recordings, protected by either federal or state law, without the express permission of the rights owner.

Case No.:HC 2000 1335 (United Kingdom, 2001)
Foreign
The British Horse Racing Board Limited (BHB) brought this action against the William Hill Organization Limited to enforce sui generis or database rights under the European Parliament's Copyright and Rights in Database Regulations 1997. The Royal Court of Justice found that William Hill infringed on BHB's database.

CA-99-2594-JFM (2001)
Federal
The issue in this case was whether an ISP enjoys a safe harbor from copyright infringement liability, as provided by Title II of the DMCA when it is put on notice of the infringement, but that notice does not comply with the Act. The court held that an imperfect notice, which substantially complies with the act, does not invalidate the notice and provide the immunity provided by the safe harbor.

CASE #: 01-CV-0408 (E.D. Pa. 2001)
Federal
The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and several broadcasting companies filed suit in an attempt to block a US Copyright Office rule. The rule promulgated by the Copyright Office states that broadcasters must pay royalties for music played on Internet simulcasts of AM/FM radio broadcasts.

Filed (S.D. Cal. 2001)
Federal
The Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America filed suit in federal court for copyright infringement against a number of websites that still offer file swapping services after the Napster decision.

170 F. Supp. 2d 974 (E.D. Cal. 2000)
Federal
The Eastern District of California refused to grant a motion for summary judgment in a copyright infringement action brought by concert-information web site Pollstar. Pollstar contends that its competitor, Gigmania, violated federal copyright law by copying and publishing Pollstar's event listings without permission.

Beijing First Intermediate People's Court (China, Oct. 10, 2000)
Foreign
The Beijing First Intermediate People's Court found infringement in the first action brought by a web site operator against a publishing house in Beijing. The China Social Publishing House infringed on Rongshu.

Multiple courts (filed Aug., 2000)
Federal
Motorola has filed five copyright infringement suits against individuals in federal courts in California, New Jersey, New York and Texas. The complaints allege that the defendants advertised and sold Motorola Radio Service Software on the eBay auction site after acquiring the software without consent.

Shanghai First Intermediate People's Court, decided July 3, 2000
Foreign
In finding that the defendant illegally copied Adobe's software, the court barred the defendant from continuing to violate Adobe's copyrights and ordered payment of $18,116 in damages. The court held that under the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, Adobe enjoys copyright protection under Chinese law due to its registration with the U.S. Copyright Office.

Filed (C.D. Cal., June 15, 2000)
Federal
RIAA filed a copyright action against RecordTV.com, a Web VCR service that records television shows for later playback. RIAA seeks up to $150,000 per work copied and distributed by the defendant.

Court of First Instance, Hong Kong, filed May 30, 2000
Foreign
HK Finance.com filed suit against Prosticks.com for allegedly placing hyperlinks on the Prosticks.com website allowing visitors to bypass HK Finance.

100 F. Supp. 2d 1058 (N.D. Cal. 2000)
Federal
Auction site sued aggregator of auction data, alleging its tools to access eBay's site and display information about items for auction there violate eBay's intellectual property rights. Judge granted preliminary injunction ordering Bidder's Edge to stop drawing information from eBay's site.

106 F. Supp. 2d 895 (N.D. Tex. 2000)
Federal
A federal court ruled that personal jurisdiction existed over a Minnesota corporation that sold its products via its web site to Texas residents, despite the small percentage of business the transactions brought to the corporation. American Eyewear Inc.

2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6243 (N.D. Cal. 2000)
Federal
Association of record companies sued Internet company that provides search tool for locating MP3 music files on the Internet. Defendant does not provide or host music files itself, but suit alleges its service facilitates copyright infringement and is therefore contributorily liable.

92 F. Supp. 2d 349 (S.D.N.Y. 2000)
Federal
UMG Recordings sued for copyright violations based on defendant's My.Mp3.com service allowing subscribers to download and listen to songs over the Internet.

2000 U.S. Dist.. LEXIS 5761 (S.D.N.Y. 2000)
Federal
Suit claimed MP3.com's service allowing users to access online copies of music they have purchased represents copyright violation because MP3.

(Bavarian state court, Munich, Germany, April 12, 2000)
Foreign
German court found AOL liable for copyright infringement where its service was used to illegally copy music files.

Filed Case No. 00-13914 (S.D. Cal., April 13, 2000 and April 25, 2000)
Federal
Heavy metal band and rap artist sued Napster music-sharing service for contributory copyright infringement. In addition to Napster, the suits named several universities that allegedly allow students to use their network facilities for access Napster for infringing activity.

98 F. Supp.2d 74 (D. Mass. 2000).
Federal
Defendants agreed to a permanent injunction barring them from distributing code allowing the plaintiff's web filtering program, Cyber Patrol, to be bypassed. The code allowed users to disable the blocking capability and see what sites the program was intended to block access to.

S.D. N.Y., filed March 28, 2000
Federal
Broadcasters filed declaratory judgment claim seeking ruling that they are not required to pay royalties for sound recordings when rebroadcasting their on-air programming over the Internet (broadcast use is exempt, but law is ambiguous as to whether that exemption extends to Internet rebroadcasts of same programs). RIAA is seeking a ruling from the Copyright Office on the same issue.

2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4553 (C.D. Cal. 2000); aff'd 248 F.3d 1173 (9th. Cir. 2001); 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6484 (C.D. Cal. 2003)
Federal
Deep linking case in which Ticketmaster sued rival online ticket vendor, alleging that deep links to Ticketmaster site violated its rights, as well as that tickets.com plagarized editorial material from Ticketmaster and misled consumers about ticket availability from Ticketmaster.

Tribunal de Grand Instance de Nanterre (France, Mar. 13, 2000)
Foreign
A French court confirmed that trademarks are subject to the same legal protection in cyberspace as in the real world. The court awarded perfume manufacturer $60K in damages and legal fees after finding the defendants guilty of counterfeiting and parasitic behavior for the registration of the wwwguylaroche.com domain name.

203 F.3d 596 (9th Cir. 2000)
Federal
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dissolved injunction against Connectix for selling a clone of its PlayStation. The court found defendant's clone to be protected fair use.

2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11670 (W.D. Pa., Feb. 8, 2000)
Federal
Coalition of motion picture and broadcasting companies sued to stop Canadian-based webcaster from rebroadcasting captured TV signals. Web site framed video content with webcaster’s advertisements.

(S.D. N.Y., filed Feb. 3, 2000)
Federal
The plaintiff operates a free-access web site offering full text of cases and statutes. To populate its database, plaintiff admittedly copied cases from LEXIS CDs and removed proprietary content.

82 F. Supp. 2d 211 (S.D.N.Y. 2000)
Federal
Copyright suit brought by the Motion Picture Association of America challenging the use of DeCSS software on the Internet. The software allows users to circumvent CSS encryption systems designed to prevent the unlicensed copying of digital-format movies.

2000 U.S. Dist.. LEXIS 1889 (W.D. Wash. 2000)
Federal
RealNetworks sued maker of products that allow users to capture and "record" streaming media files, and to convert streaming files into other formats such as MP3. Court granted preliminary injunction barring sales of Streambox VCR (recorder) and Streambox Ferret (search tool), but reversed temporary restraining order and allowed sales of Streambox Ripper (audio file converter).

Case No. CV 786804 (Federal Dist Ct. 1999)
Federal
DVD Copy Control Association (Plaintiff) filed a lawsuit seeking the limited remedy of injunctive relief for misappropriation of its trade secret. The Court denied Plaintiff's broad request for a Temporary Restraining Order but has granted a more limited injunction against Defendants to prohibit Defendants from posting and/or knowingly linking to any websites that post the trade secret and/or its derivatives.

multiple courts, filed Dec. 1999-Jan. 2000
Unknown
Motion picture companies and makers of DVD copy control technology sued alleged hackers who posted codes to decrypt DVDs on their web sites. Suit involves untested portions of Digital Millennium Copyright Act dealing with copy protection mechanisms.

77 F. Supp. 2d 1116 (C.D. Cal. 1999)
Federal
Plaintiff sued operator of search engine ditto.com for posting thumbnail images of his copyrighted photographs in its search results.

S.D. Cal. filed Dec. 8, 1999
Federal
Microsoft sued 6 companies alleging online sales of counterfeit software. Some companies were online retailers, while others were auction sites.

75 F. Supp. 2d 1290 (D. Utah 1999)
Federal
Linking Liability. In the first U.S. case of its kind, Federal Judge Tena Campbell granted the IRI a preliminary injunction against critics of the Mormon Church finding that the defendants had engaged in contributory copyright infringement for posting an e-mail to their site which contained three links to web sites that they knew, or should have known, contained infringing copies of the Church Handbook of Instructions.

Civ. No. 98-7840 (C.D. Cal., Nov. 8, 1999)
Federal
Los Angeles Times and Washington Post filed suit alleging copyright infringement against Web site that posts full reproductions of their articles without their permission and invites users to comment. Stories are reprinted with disclaimer that they are copyrighted material.

74 F. Supp. 2d 1 (D.D.C. 1999)
Federal
Plaintiff, a Web site posting literary works that have fallen into the public domain, challenges the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. Plaintiff argues that the act is unconstitutional in that the additional twenty years of copyright protection conferred by the Act does not rationally balance the author's incentives to create with the public's benefit from works in the public domain.

No published opinion (1999)
Foreign
Board denied request from music composers to impose tariff on ISPs and others involved solely in transmission of Internet traffic to compensate composers for use of their music on the Internet. Board decided that tariff should be imposed on web sites offering music downloads from servers in Canada, or on ISPs that post or offer content services.

(Sweden, Sept. 1999)
Foreign
Teenager accused of copyright infringement for making links to copyrighted recordings available on his web site. Court acquitted him, because he did not actually make or host copies but only provided links to them.

192 3d 356 (2d Cir. N.Y. 1999)
Federal
Six authors alleged that the defendants (New York Times, Time Inc., Mead Data Central (former owner of LEXIS), University Microfilms Intl.

No. C-99 20939 (N.D. Cal. filed Sept. 15, 1999).
Federal
Plaintiff operates a price comparison web site, and alleges that defendants site offering similar services includes text copied directly from plaintiff's site and also directs queries to plaintiff's site for processing but passes the results off as its own work.

67 F. Supp. 2d 745 (E.D. Mich. 1999)
Federal
Court denied Ford's request to prohibit operator of web site from publishing confidential company documents. Site contained information about Ford's future strategy and product plans, often based on confidential documents provided by employees.

(Beijing, China, Sept. 1999)
Foreign
In what is believed to be the first ruling of its kind in China, a court found that the defendant violated the copyrights of several authors by placing their works on its web site. The court ordered the defendant to apologize and give compensation to the authors.

(D. Or. 1999)
Unknown
University of Oregon student pled guilty to felony copyright infringement under the No Electronic Theft Act. Student had posted copyrighted material including movies, music, and software on his web site, making it available for copying by others.

Cause No. 96/1048, Dist. Ct. of the Hague, Holland, June 9, 1999; rev'd No. 99/1040, September 4, 2003
Foreign
ISPs held liable for copyright infringement based on customer web sites including copyrighted documents and links to other sites with copyrighted documents; court held that ISP's would be liable upon notice that infringing documents were on their system which could not reasonably be doubted, unless they act quickly to remove the material. Court also stated that ISPs could be required to divulge name and address of customers whose site included infringing material.

No. C99-0897 (W.D. Wash., filed June 3, 1999)
Federal
Amazon.com sought declaratory judgment that it has not infringed any intellectual property rights of the New York Times by designating books as being on the Times' bestseller list.

Tokyo District Court (Japan 1999)
Foreign
A Japanese court held that software developers do not have an exclusive right of distribution under the nation's copyright laws. The decision allowed Josho Co.

48 F. Supp. 2d 1212 (N.D. 1999)
Federal
Sony Computer Entertainment blocked one company from selling a clone of its PlayStation, but lost its bid for a second injunction. Sony won an order in Federal District Court in San Francisco preventing Connectix from selling a PlayStation emulator for Macintosh computers.

Filed (1999)
Unknown
In a copyright infringement action, plaintiffs allege that defendants are using, without permission, plaintiffs' multiple listing service information on defendant's Web site. Defendant argues that there is not a copyright violation because the plaintiff does not own the facts contained in the descriptions about the properties.

Unknown
Court denied Sony an injunction against San Diego software maker Bleem, which makes a PlayStation emulator for Pentium-based PCs. See also Sony Computer Entertainment v. Connectix Corp.

1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17574 (D. Colo. 1998)
Federal
Plaintiffs, part of the Church of Scientology, alleged copyright infringement against defendants who maintain a bulletin board service and library on the Internet. Plaintiffs allege: (1) it has copyrights in 1,914 works, (2) defendants made unauthorized copies of the works in both hard copy and computer readable form, and (3) defendants offered the works for sale.

1998 U.S. Dist LEXIS 21281 (N.D. Cal. 1998)
Federal
In a copyright infringement and trade secrets misappropriation action, personal jurisdiction was proper over an out of state defendant who posted allegedly infringing software on its Web site. The court held that the Web site was interactive and not passive because Internet users could download the infringing software at the site, and, therefore, personal jurisdiction was proper.

23 F. Supp. 2d 1146 (N.D. Cal. 1998)
Federal
Defendant, who sells over 1,000 articles a day via an Internet index from 17,000 magazines and journals, violated authors' copyrights by making payments to publishers instead of authors for material in which authors held the copyright. Court held that under section 201(c) of the Copyright Act, the right to reproduce a collective work does not extend to copying an individual author's contribution to such work.

21 F. Supp. 2d 1318 (D. Utah 1998)
Federal
In action alleging trade secret misappropriation, unfair competition, copyright infringement, and business tort, defendant's Web site, which court characterized as passive advertisement, was not sufficient to support exercise of personal jurisdiction.

1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19048 (C.D. Cal. 1998)
Federal
Web site, three links away from unauthorized reproduction of photographer's copyrighted work, was "too indirect" to be held copyright infringement. Photographer, Gary Bernstein, brought suit against J.C. Penney and Elizabeth Arden, Inc.