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.

In-house counsel, game company CEOs, and any other interested parties are invited to attend this roundtable to be held April 24, 2008, in Perkins Coie's Seattle offices.

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.

Of Counsel Lisa Oratz will speak at a Law Seminars International conference designed to provide the latest information on changes in copyright law.  The conference will take place April 14-15, 2008, in Seattle.

On October 4 - 5, 2007, Conference Co-Chair Kirk Soderquist and speakers Don Karl and Shaalu Mehra will join other leading industry professionals and practitioners discussing content, access and intellectual property issues, recent court decisions, financing, cross-border issues, the growth of casual games, M&A transactions and outsourcing agreements.

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.

Priceline, Travelocity and Cingular Wireless each contracted with DirectRevenue LLC to deliver ads to consumers. To service its clients (including Priceline, Travelocity and Cingular Wireless), DR installed adware on millions of computers. The adware, which was undisclosed to users and difficult to remove, monitored the websites visited by the users and collected the information they typed into web forms. The NY AG filed a law suit alleging that DirectRevenue had violated New York consumer protection law, then pursued DirectRevenue's three major advertiser clients.

The U.S. Copyright Office has announced six new classes of works which are exempt from the Digital Millenium Copyright Act's prohibition against the circumvention of technological measures designed to control access to copyrighted works set forth in 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1).

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.

On June 27, 2005, the United States Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., 545 U.S. --- (2005), that appears to edge open the door for copyright holders to successfully sue distributors of software and other technology that enables others to commit copyright infringement.