A Second Circuit Panel Misunderstands the Copyright Act’s Statute of Limitations (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa In Sohm v. Scholastic, Inc., 959 F.3d 39 (2d Cir. 2020), a Second Circuit panel held that “the discovery rule applies for statute of limitations purposes in determining when a copyright infringement claim accrues under the…
IAP Defeats Vicarious Copyright Infringement Claim–UMG v. Bright House
In a good ruling for Internet access providers (IAPs), a court said that the IAP Bright House wasn’t vicariously liable for its users’ copyright infringing activity because the IAP lacked a direct financial benefit. The court says that the legal…
Data Center Avoids Copyright Liability By Forwarding DMCA Notices to Its Customer–ALS Scan v. Steadfast
Steadfast operates data centers. Imagebam is one of its customers. Imagebam provides image hosting services. Allegedly, Imagebam has “become an unauthorized hub of copyrighted adult material.” ALS Scan, which owns many copyrights in pornographic works, sent Steadfast DMCA takedown notices…
Print-on-Demand Vendor Doesn’t Qualify for DMCA Safe Harbor–Feingold v. RageOn
This case involves two copyright-protected photos that users submitted to the RageOn print-on-demand service. Among other defenses, RageOn invoked the DMCA safe harbor. The Greg Young v. Zazzle case held that Zazzle qualified for the 512(c) safe harbor for displaying…
Why Are Pizzerias Arguing Whether Web Browsing Is Copyright Infringement?–Imapizza v. At Pizza
“&Pizza” runs an East Coast pizzeria chain. “@Pizza” runs a UK pizzeria chain. Let’s disregard that both brands are terrible (the & and @ symbols plus the generic term–UGH) and that @Pizza may not own its eponymous Twitter account (the…
Is It OK to Embed Instagram Photos? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We recently covered Sinclair v. Ziff Davis, addressing whether Instagram’s terms of service authorize a third party to publish photos posted to Instagram by embedding those photos online. The court in that case initially said yes. However, the court’s reconsideration…
Q2 2020 Quick Links (Everything)
Copyright * Sony Music Entertainment v. Cox Communications, Inc., 2020 WL 3121306 (E.D. Va. June 2, 2020). Each downloaded song file generally can support its own statutory damage, but “compilations” only get one statutory damages award, and no double-counting of…
Running Geotargeted Advertising Confers Personal Jurisdiction–UMG Recordings v. Kurbanov
The plaintiffs brought a copyright infringement lawsuit in the Eastern District of Virginia federal court. The defendants include FLVTO and 2conv, two Russian-based websites that enable users to engage in stream-ripping of YouTube videos and other sources (i.e., extracting the…
Fortnite Defeats Another Lawsuit Over Emote Dance Moves–Brantley v. Epic Games
This case involves the “Running Man” dance, a 2016 fad. (Note: the dance is not the same as the old-skool Running Man dance move, a 1980s classic that I’ve attempted on occasion). A viral video of people doing a “Running…
Fair Use Protects a Highly Cropped Photo–Harbus v. Manhattan Institute
Harbus is a photographer. He owns the copyright to a photo of Gov. Cuomo. The Manhattan Institute is a conservative think tank. One of their fellows published an article in the New York Post (you can see the full photo…