Court Decision Brings Clarity to the Law of Contributory Copyright Infringement

On October 16 of this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit issued a significant decision regarding contributory liability for copyright infringement. In Greer v. Moon, the court concluded that the plaintiff-appellant sufficiently stated a claim for contributory copyright infringement against the defendant-respondents – a  website and its operator – by alleging that digital copies of a copyrighted book and a copyrighted music recording were posted on the website without authorization, the site refused to comply with a takedown notice, and that the site's conduct contributed to the infringement by encouraging the site's users to commit direct infringement.

Contributory liability is a form of secondary liability for copyright infringement, and it requires that a copyright owners show: (1) existence of a direct infringement; (2) a party's knowledge of the direct infringement; and (3) a party's contribution to the direct infringement by causing or materially contributing to it. 

The lower court had dismissed the plaintiff-appellant's infringement claims against the website and its operator on the grounds that merely permitting infringing material to remain on the site without having induced or encouraged "the initial infringement" is not enough to plead infringement based on contributory liability. 

 

However, the 10th Circuit concluded that the defendant-respondents' alleged conduct went beyond passive behavior in merely permitting infringing content to remain on the site. According to the court, a reasonable inference from the facts alleged is that the site's reposting of the plaintiff-appellant's copyright takedown notice – apparently to belittle the copyright owner and the notice as well as for acknowledge that the sites users would continue to engage in infringing activity – amounted to encouragement of the site's users to engage in direct infringement of the plaintiff-appellant's protected works. 

 

Importantly, the 10th Circuit determined that the lower court's insertion of "initial infringement" qualifier to making a claim contributory liability for infringement was improper. It wrote: "We cannot understand initial to be a literal requirement supported by applicable law, otherwise contributory infringement liability would rarely, if ever, lie for ongoing repeated infringements."

 

In Greer v. Moon, the 10th Circuit rightly rejected a would-be barrier to obtaining relief for contributory copyright infringement because it is unsupported by law. Unfortunately, courts in other cases have sometimes narrowed the scope of traditional secondary liability principles as applied in the context of Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Free State Foundation President Randolph May and I address this in our June 2020 Perspectives from FSF Scholars, "Copyright Office Report Should Spur Modernizing the DMCA." 

House Judiciary Committee to Review Report on DMCA's Section 512

On September 30 at noon EST, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on "Copyright and the Internet in 2020: Reactions to the Copyright Office's Report on the Efficacy of 17 U.S.C. § 512 After Two Decades."   

Free State Foundation President Randolph May and I addressed the need for updating Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in our new book, Modernizing Copyright Law for the Digital Age - Constitutional Foundations for Reform. Section 512 includes a "notice-and-takedown" provision that allows complying online platforms to receive safe harbor from legal liability when their users upload copyrighted content to their websites. We offered further analysis of this topic -- and the findings of the U.S. Copyright Office -- in our June 2020 Perspectives from FSF Scholars paper, "Copyright Office Report Should Spur Modernizing the DMCA." As our Perspectives paper stated: 

The Copyright Office's report is a helpful starting point for legislative reforms needed to better protect movies, TV shows, sound recordings, and other content from infringements that cost U.S. copyright owners hundreds of millions of dollars each year. A series of amendments to Section 512 are needed to correct court decisions that have put undue burdens on copyright owners, departed from common law standards for secondary liability, and reduced accountability of online service providers for infringing content posted by users of their sites.

…

The sweeping number of changes that ought to be considered to modernize Section 512 makes a strong case for a legislative overhaul of the DMCA. Congress should exercise its prerogative to explore reforms beyond those contained in the report, consistent with the Constitution's entrusting Congress with the power to secure copyrights. Such reforms should include, for instance, a more widespread "notice and stay down" requirement when copyright owners submit formal takedown notices and future postings of that same infringing content are posted on the same sites.

For more details, check out our new book and our Perspectives paper.

Signing of USMCA Spotlights International Copyright Protections

On November 30, President Trump and leaders from Canada and Mexico officially signed the proposed United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USCMA). Completion of the trade agreement's negotiation was announced in October. If approved by Congress, USMCA will replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). 

USMCA contains several provisions to better secure Americans' copyright protections. FSF President Randolph J. May and I address many of those provisions in our Perspectives from FSF Scholars paper, "Modernizing International Copyright Agreements to Combat Copyright Infringement." Among its pro-copyright provisions, USMCA would help American owners of sound recordings the full scope of public performance rights. Additionally, USMCA provides for stepped up enforcement through increased civil and criminal penalties for infringing activities such as "stream-ripping" and "camcording." 

However, USMCA incorporates language similar to the Section 512 "notice-and-takedown" provision contained in current U.S. copyright law. Section 512 is outdated and ineffective in protecting digital music and video content from mass infringement on popular user-upload websites. Future trade agreements and treaties should avoid that language. Congress and the Trump Administration should work to reform and update the notice-and-takedown system. We discuss these aspects of Section 512 in further detail our Perspectives paper, "Modernizing Civil Copyright Enforcement for the Digital Age Economy: The Need for Notice-and-Takedown Reforms and Small Claims Relief."

USMCA Strengthens IP Rights Protections But Can Be Improved Further

On October 1, 2018, the Trump Administration announced a new multilateral free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, set to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In some respects, the Intellectual Property (IP) Chapter in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) would strengthen the protections and enforcement of IP rights relative to NAFTA's IP Chapter, and this is an improvement. Notably, the USMCA would implement provisions and enforcement mechanisms that should diminish the facilitation of pirated and counterfeit goods in the three member countries.

However, the proposed agreement also carries forward an outdated "notice-and-takedown" provision that does not properly protect the interests of creators and consumers.

FSF scholars recently have advocated for the modernization of NAFTA's IP Chapter. (See here and here.) And the USMCA would improve some important measures related to the protection of the rights of trademark and copyright holders. Here are some of the key provisions in the USMCA that would strengthen IP rights protections:

• Requires a minimum copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years, and for those works with a copyright term that is not based on the life of a person, a minimum of 75 years after first authorized publication. Canada currently has terms of life of the author plus 50 years and 70 years, respectively.

• Requires strong standards against the circumvention of technological protection measures that often protect works such as digital music, movies, and books.

• Enhances provisions for protecting trademarks, including well-known marks, to help companies that have invested effort and resources into establishing goodwill for their brands.

• Provides important procedural safeguards for recognition of new geographical indications (GIs), including strong standards for protection against issuances of GIs that would prevent United States producers from using common names, as well as establishes a mechanism for consultation between the member countries on future GIs pursuant to international agreements.

Additionally, the proposed agreement would require some enforcement mechanisms to deter the facilitation of pirated and counterfeit goods. Specifically, IP enforcement procedures must be available for the digital environment for copyright and trademark. The USMCA also includes procedures and penalties for unauthorized "camcording" of movies, which is a significant source of pirated movies online.

From the United States' perspective, about $1.3 trillion in annual economic activity is attributable to trade that crosses the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico. Efforts to stop online piracy and the sale of counterfeit goods will encourage creators and entrepreneurs to develop new content and invest in new brands because they will have a greater ability to earn a return on their labor and resources.

However, there is one area where the USMCA needs work. The USMCA includes outdated safe harbor provisions very similar to the provisions adopted in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In particular, the USMCA carries forward without strengthening a "notice-and-takedown" provision that does not adequately protect creators and consumers.

As Free State Foundation President Randolph May and Senior Fellow Seth Cooper stated in a February 2018 Perspectives from FSF Scholars, the notice-and-takedown provision was adopted twenty years ago and does not reflect today's digital marketplace for copyrighted works:  

"[Under the notice-and-takedown provision], copyright holders are entitled to give notice to an online service provider when infringing content is posted on its network or website. A provider receives immunity if it 'responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing.'"

"In the late 1990s there were far fewer Internet users and far fewer online platforms for user posting of content. Today, user-upload websites such as YouTube, Vevo, Dailymotion, and SoundCloud make massive amounts of music and video content available. Regrettably, users of those websites and others post far too much infringing content. For example, between 2011 and 2015, the sound recording industry issued over 175 million takedown notices to various online providers."

"As a result of mass online infringement and the burdensome nature of the notice and takedown process, copyright owners lose revenues that they would receive otherwise from legitimate sales of copies to consumers."

Compared to NAFTA, the USMCA takes some important steps to modernize and strengthen the protection and enforcement of IP rights to account for a burgeoning digital marketplace. But it's not perfect. Congress and the Office of the United States Trade Representative still need to find a way, in the context of negotiating trade agreements, to revise the "notice-and-takedown" regime in a way that adequately protects creators and consumers.