Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Viacom appeals from judgment dismissing YouTube case

Judgment has been entered dismissing Viacom v. YouTube, and some of the losing plaintiffs have filed a notice of appeal.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Plaintiff in Oregon ordered to show cause why John Doe cases should not be severed, Voltage v Does 1-198


In a group of Oregon cases brought by plaintiff Voltage Pictures against more than 600 "Doe" defendants, the Court has ordered plaintiff to show cause why the cases should not be severed.

Order to show cause why cases should not be severed, April 10, 2013, Hon. Ann Aiken, District Judge

Friday, April 19, 2013

Motion to sever, dismiss & quash granted in NJ case, Malibu Media v John Does 1-10


In a Newark, New Jersey, case, Malibu Media v. John Does 1-10, the Court has granted the motions of several defendants to sever, to dismiss the complaints, and to quash the subpoena.

April 19, 2013, Opinion and Order, Hon. Stanley R. Chesler, District Judge

Thursday, April 18, 2013

YouTube wins again

Once again, YouTube has won, in Viacom v. YouTube.

The plaintiffs had previously convinced the Second Circuit to remand the case to the district court for determination of some factual issues relating to specific videos. District Judge Louis L. Stanton has now resolved all of the issues in favor of YouTube, and once again dismissed the case.

In doing so he held that
-YouTube did not have knowledge or awareness of any specific infringement
-YouTube did not engage in "willful blindness" towards any specific infringement
-YouTube did not induce its users to commit copyright infringement or otherwise interact with its users to a point where it might be said to have participated in their infringements
-YouTube's syndication of videos did not involve manual selection or delivery of videos

April 18, 2013, Opinion Granting Summary Judgment to Defendant After Remand, Hon. Louis L. Stanton

Commentary & discussion:

Slashdot

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

2nd Circuit affirms denial of plaintiffs' preliminary injunction motion in WNET v Aereo

In a rare interlocutory appeal, in WNET v. Aereo, Inc., the Second Circuit has affirmed the district court's denial of plaintiff broadcasters' motion for preliminary injunction, following its earlier ruling against the MPAA in Cartoon Networks v. CSC Holdings.

The 62 page decision (35 pages for main decision, 27 pages for dissenting opinion) concluded that Aereo's system for allowing individual users to record and replay broadcasts did not constitute a "public performance" and therefore did not implicate the "public performance" right.

Since the plaintiffs were unlikely to prevail on the merits, the Court held, they were not entitled to a preliminary injunction.

Opinion of US Court of Appeals 2nd Circuit

Monday, April 08, 2013

Court sua sponte severs as to Doe defendants in Ohio cases, Safety Point v Does 1-14 et al

In a group of Cleveland, Ohio, cases, Safety Point Products v. Does 1-14, and three other cases, District Judge James S. Gwin of the Northern District of Ohio has sua sponte severed as to all John Does, on the grounds that "participation" in a BitTorrent "swarm" is too imprecise a factor to justify joinder under the Federal Rules and the Court was "unconvinced that Plaintiff has even pleaded a prima facie case of copyright infringement", as well as on the alternative ground that permitting joinder "violates a sense of fairness".

The Court further ruled that, even apart from the joinder question, it "would hesitate to subpoena the ISPs without further information regarding Defendants’ alleged conduct."

Opinion and Order, District Judge James S. Gwin, April 4, 2013

Tuesday, April 02, 2013

"ReDigi Loses: You Can't Resell Your MP3s (Unless You Sell Your Whole Hard Drive)" ~ TechDirt


Article by Mike Masnick in TechDirt:
ReDigi Loses: You Can't Resell Your MP3s (Unless You Sell Your Whole Hard Drive)
from the a-big-first-sale-loss dept

This is hardly a surprise at all. In fact, we expected this kind of ruling all along. ReDigi, the company that was trying to build a "market" around "used MP3s" has lost at the district court. As you may recall, ReDigi tried to set up a system that monitors your own files, so that if you "sell" a used MP3, you have to make sure it's been removed from your own system. As you might imagine, that system is not foolproof, but some effort has been made (and it's only allowed for reselling MP3s ReDigi can prove you've purchased, such as via iTunes, and not for files just ripped from CDs). While I fully expected ReDigi to lose, the ruling is still fairly distressing in just how badly it distorts other parts of the law, which may harm other, even more reasonable uses. Hopefully, ReDigi will appeal and fight back against the more extreme interpretation from the district court here.

First, the court looks into the question of whether or not a transfer of a copyrighted file, where only one file remains at the end, still violates the "reproduction" right. That is, if Bob transfers a file to Alice, and Bob's copy of the file is immediately deleted, is that still a reproduction under the Copyright Act? The court says yes:......
Complete article


Opinion, March 30, 2013