Kes-Kes Berkaitan

Copyright / ISP Liability

Religious Technology Center v. Netcom (California case). 

In that case, files containing copyrighted materials owned by the Church of Scientology were placed on an Internet newsgroup through a newsgroup server controlled by Netcom (an ISP). The user that placed the files on the Internet actually utilized a local bulletin board service (BBS) that provided Internet access through Netcom. The Church requested that the BBS and Netcom deny access to the individual involved, and that they remove all documents containing Church materials from the servers they controlled. When both the BBS and Netcom refused, the case went to court. The court found that neither the BBS nor Netcom had directly infringed the Church's copyrights, since neither party had taken any affirmative steps to cause the copies to be made. Although the computer systems of both parties operated automatically to receive and transmit the postings of subscribers, the court found that this is not enough to establish a direct infringement claim. On a claim for vicarious liability, the court also found against the Church, finding that there was no direct monetary reward to either Netcom or the BBS for the posting of infringing materials. However, the Court found that Netcom may be liable to the Church under the theory of contributory infringement by materially contributing to the infringement of the user. Although the court recognized that there could be no liability even under the contributory infringement theory unless Netcom knew of the infringement, the court stated that if Netcom knew or should have know about the presence of the copyrighted materials on its server and failed to remove them, that failure could amount to contributory infringement. The notice that the Church provided to Netcom may have been enough for Netcom to be liable for its failure to act on that notice. Unfortunately, before this final issue could be determined by the court, the parties settled the lawsuit.

Cases decided since Netcom have followed the Netcom court's analysis. For instance, a bulletin board operator who knowingly allowed his users to upload and download copyrighted SEGA games was determined not to be a direct infringer of SEGA's copyrights. However, since the BBS operator knew about the copies, and developed a scheme to actively encourage the uploading of such copies, he was found guilty under the theory of contributory infringement.




Playboy Enterprises v. Frena 


a BBS operator whose bulletin board contained copyrighted photographs owned by Playboy was found liable of violating the right to display and publish the photographs. This was true even though the BBS operator did not make the copies himself, and in fact was never proven to have knowledge of their existence. In effect, this case held the BBS operator liable merely for providing a means by which copies (made by others) could be distributed to the public. If this logic were extended to ISPs in general, an ISP could be held liable for its members activities on the ISPs web and newsgroup servers, even without knowledge of such activity. However, it is unlikely that such a ruling would ever be made given the major impact such a position would have on the expansion of and access to the Internet.




Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Limited (No. 3)[2010] FCA 24.
iiNet is an Australian internet provider, which was sued by Australian film producer Roadshow Films, part of the Village Roadshow conglomerate.  However, the real power behind the suit was the weight provided by several Hollywood studios, including Warner, Columbia, 20th Century, and Sony Pictures.  The question at the heart of the proceedings was whether an ISP is to be held liable for the copyright infringement committed by its customers.  Call me cynical, but it seems like the film studios chose Australia as the first place to test this theory because Australian copyright law holds secondary infringement as direct infringement.  In other words, anyone making available copyright works will be held similarly liable, whether they do so directly or indirectly.




PG v. Diebold
Diebold, Inc., manufacturer of electronic voting machines, has been sending out many cease-and-desist letters to Internet Service Providers (ISPs), after internal documents indicating flaws in their systems were published on the Internet. The company cited copyright violations under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and demanded that the documents be taken down. EFF and the Center for the Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford Law School are fighting back.



Naas v. Anonymizer
Directory of information on an Ohio lawsuit against Anonymizer.com (a provider of anonymous Internet service) and several other parties (mostly John Doe defendants), in which a defamed plaintiff attempts to hold the service provider liable for third parties' defamatory statements.


CoStar v. LoopNet
Information regarding the CoStar v. LoopNet copyright infringement case. The district court dismissed the direct infringement claim against LoopNet, which hosted allegedly infringing photographs on its website. The court also addressed the application of the DMCA's 512 "safe harbor" provisions.

ALA v. FCC - Broadcast Flag

EFF established that the FCC and Hollywood don't control your TiVo - you do.
The FCC's "broadcast flag" mandate would have given copyright holders and the government a veto over development and use of digital television tuners. Only technologies crippled by copy protection would have been legal. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously concluded, as EFF and a coalition of public interest groups had argued, that the FCC lacked authority to regulate what happens inside your TV or computer once it has received a broadcast signal.

Online Policy Group v. Diebold

EFF protected online speakers by bringing the first successful suit against abusive copyright claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
When internal memos exposing flaws in Diebold Election Systems' electronic voting machines leaked onto the Internet, Diebold used bogus copyright threats to silence its critics. EFF fought back on behalf of an ISP, winning an award of damages, costs, and attorneys' fees. Equally important, the case set a precedent that will allow other Internet users and their ISPs to fight back against improper copyright threats.

Bernstein v. U.S. Dept. of Justice

EFF established that computer code is speech and shielded the developers of privacy-protecting software from government censorship.
In 1995, researcher Dan Bernstein planned to distribute an encryption program he had written that could help prevent strangers from snooping on online communications, discovering passwords, and stealing credit card numbers. But draconian federal laws restricted the publication of his program, treating privacy protection as a potential threat to national security. EFF successfully sued the government on behalf of Bernstein, and a federal court affirmed, for the first time, that software code deserves First Amendment protection.

ACLU v. Reno and ACLU v. Ashcroft - CDA and COPA

EFF extended free speech protections online, successfully challenging the constitutionality of Internet censorship laws.
In 1996, EFF and a coalition of public interest groups sued to block the Communications Decency Act, which criminalized publishing certain content online that the government clearly could not prohibit offline. Unanimously, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the law and established that online speech deserves the full protection of the First Amendment. Congress still didn't learn its lesson, subsequently passing the slightly narrower but still gravely dangerous Children Online Protection Act. Again, EFF fought back, and the Supreme Court has twice upheld injunctions against the law.

Steve Jackson Games v. U.S. Secret Service

EFF set one of the first precedents protecting computer communications from unwarranted government invasion.
In 1990, the Secret Service seized the computers of a small company out of Austin, Texas, called Steve Jackson Games. The computers included the company's electronic bulletin board system, a precursor the Internet for exchanging private email. This case was the first to establish that it is illegal for law enforcement to access and read private electronic mail without a warrant.