''Flava Works, Inc v. Gunter'', 689 F.3d 754 (7th Cir. 2012), is a decision by the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, authored by Judge

Richard Posner Richard Allen Posner (; born January 11, 1939) is an American jurist and legal scholar who served as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. A senior lecturer at the University of Chicag ...

, which held that Marques Gunter, the sole proprietor of the site myVidster.com, a social bookmarking website that enables its users to share videos posted elsewhere online through embedded frames, was not liable for its users' sharing and embedding of copyrighted videos. The court of appeals reversed the decision of the

United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (in case citations, N.D. Ill.) is the federal trial-level court with jurisdiction over the northern counties of Illinois. Appeals from the Northern District of Illinois ar ...

, which had granted a

preliminary injunction An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in par ...

against myVidster, citing sufficient knowledge of infringement on Gunter's part, while denying safe harbor defense under the

Digital Millennium Copyright Act The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...

(DMCA). The Court held that Gunter was not directly liable because the copyrighted content was not stored on myVidster's servers, and was not contributorily liable because there was no evidence that conduct by myVidster increased the amount of infringement.

Background

Flava Works Flava Works, Inc. is a company that produces gay media featuring black and Latino men. Its headquarters are in Miami, Florida, with a satellite office in Chicago, Illinois. Overview Flava Works was founded in 1999 and is owned and operated by CEO ...

is an adult entertainment company producing pornographic videos and images featuring black and Latino men. It owns several registered copyrights and trademarks. Part of Flava Works' business includes streaming video through its various websites. In 2010 Flava Works filed a complaint against myVidster, a website allowing users to post videos to be searched and viewed by other users. The complaint contained seven counts of infringement: # direct

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, ...

(Count I) #

contributory copyright infringement Contributory copyright infringement is a way of imposing secondary liability for infringement of a copyright. It is a means by which a person may be held liable for copyright infringement even though he or she did not directly engage in the infringi ...

(Count II) # vicarious copyright infringement (Count III) # inducement of copyright infringement (Count IV) # false designation of origin in violation of the

Lanham Act The Lanham (Trademark) Act (, codified at et seq. () is the primary federal trademark statute of law in the United States. The Act prohibits a number of activities, including trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and false advertising. ...

(Count V) # trademark and trade dress infringement in violation of the

(Count VI) and #

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omniprese ...

trademark infringement Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attached to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees (provided that such authorization was within the scope of the licence). Infringement may ...

and

unfair competition Unfair may refer to: * Double Taz and Double LeBron James in multiverses '' fair''; unfairness or injustice * ''Unfair'' (drama), Japanese television series * '' Unfair: The Movie'' * Unfair (song), a song by South Korean boy group EXO