In Re Aimster Copyright Litigation
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''In re Aimster Copyright Litigation'', 334 F.3d 643 ( 7th Cir. 2003), was a case in which the
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (in case citations, 7th Cir.) is the U.S. United States federal court, federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the United States district court, courts in the following United Stat ...
addressed
copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...
claims brought against Aimster, concluding that a
preliminary injunction An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable reme ...
against the file-sharing service was appropriate because the copyright owners were likely to prevail on their claims of contributory infringement, and that the services could have non-infringing users was insufficient reason to reverse the district court's decision. The appellate court also noted that the defendant could have limited the quantity of the infringements if it had eliminated an encryption system feature, and if it had monitored the use of its systems. This made it so that the defense did not fall within the safe harbor of 17 U.S.C. § 512(i). and could not be used as an excuse to not know about the infringement. In addition, the court decided that the harm done to the plaintiff was irreparable and outweighed any harm to the defendant created by the injunction.


Background

Recording industry owners of copyrights in musical performances brought contributory and vicarious infringement action, a type of secondary liability, against a website operator called Aimster, a company similar to
Napster Napster was an American proprietary peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing application primarily associated with digital audio file distribution. Founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, the platform originally launched on June 1, 1999. Audio shared ...
which facilitated the swapping of digital copies of songs over the internet.ENotes Website at http://www.enotes.com/topic/In_re_Aimster_Copyright_Litigation Owners of copyrighted popular music claimed that John Deep ("Deep")'s ''Aimster'' Internet service was a contributory and vicarious infringer of these copyrights. 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 court with jurisdiction over the northern counties of Illinois. It is one of the busiest federal trial courts in the Uni ...
, Marvin E. Aspen, Jr., granted preliminary injunction for plaintiffs, which shut down Defendant's service until the suit was resolved, Aimster appealed from this preliminary injunction to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The
defendant In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case. Terminology varies from one juris ...
s argued that, unlike Napster, they designed their technology in such a way that they had no way of monitoring the content of swapped files. Someone who wanted to use Aimster's basic service for the first time to swap files had to download Aimster's software and then had to register on the system. After doing this he might designate any other registered user called a ''buddy'', with whom he might communicate directly whenever both of them were online, and have the capability of interchanging music files. If the user did not designate any buddies, then all the users of the system became automatically his buddies to share files.


Opinion

The court held that in this case the users of the systems were the direct infringers, these who are ignorant or more commonly disdainful of copyright and in any event discount the likelihood of being sued or prosecuted for copyright infringement, however companies such as Aimster that facilitate their infringement, even if they are not themselves direct infringers can be liable for copyright violations as contributory infringers. The court analyzed that the copyrighted materials might sometimes be shared between users of such a system without the authorization of the holder of the copyright owner and, in this case, fair-use privilege will not make the Aimster a contributory infringer. As mentioned in the ''Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.'',. also known as the ''Betamax'' case, the producer of a product which has substantial noninfringing uses is not a contributory infringer, merely because some of the uses actually made of the product are infringing. In that case, a video reproducer machine called
Betamax Betamax (also known as Beta, and stylized as the Greek letter Beta, β in its logo) is a discontinued consumer analog Videotape, video cassette recording format developed by Sony. It was one of the main competitors in the videotape format war ag ...
, the predecessor of today's videocassette recorders was at the issue. The court explained about the sale of the Betamax that the ability of a service provider to prevent its customers from infringing is a factor to be considered in determining whether the provider is or not a contributory infringer. Aimster, however, was not able to produce any evidence that its service had ever been used for a noninfringing purpose, instead the facts showed that Aimster encouraged these infringing activities. The court rejected Aimster's argument that to prevail the recording industry should prove that some actual loss of money has occurred because of the copying that Aimster service's contribute in producing. The court explained that although the court, in ''Betamax'', emphasized that the plaintiffs had failed to show that they had sustained substantial harm from Sony's video recorder, it did so in the context of assessing the argument that time shifting of television programs was fair use rather than infringement. The court believed that Betamax was not hurting the copyright owners because it was enlarging the audience for their programs, as well as advertisements. However it was also clear that even though without proving economic loss, compensation for damages can not be awarded, plaintiff could still obtain statutory damages and an injunction. The Court also rejected Aimster's argument that because the court said in ''Betamax'' that mere ''constructive knowledge'' of infringing uses is not enough for contributory infringement (464 U.S. at 439, 104 S.Ct. 774) and the
encryption In Cryptography law, cryptography, encryption (more specifically, Code, encoding) is the process of transforming information in a way that, ideally, only authorized parties can decode. This process converts the original representation of the inf ...
feature of Aimster's service prevented Deep from knowing what songs were being copied by the users of his system, Aimster lacked the knowledge of infringing uses that liability for contributory infringement requires. The opinion also makes it clear that a service provider that fits within the characteristics of a contributory infringer does not obtain any sort of immunity by using encryption, to avoid knowledge of the unlawful purposes for which the service is being used. Actually, a tutorial for the Aimster software showed as its only examples of file sharing the sharing of copyrighted works. In this sense the tutorial was nothing but an invitation to infringe this copyrighted music, same invitation that the Supreme Court found could not find in the ''Sony'' case.
Willful blindness In law, willful ignorance is when a person seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally keeping themselves unaware of facts that would render them liable or implicated. In '' United States v. Jewell'', the court ...
is knowledge, in copyright law (where indeed it may be enough that the defendant should have known of the direct infringement, see ''Casella v. Morris''), as it is in the law generally. Another example is ''Louis Vuitton S.A. v. Lee'', 875 F.2d 584, 590 (7th Cir. 1989) (contributory trademark infringement). The doctrine of
willful blindness In law, willful ignorance is when a person seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally keeping themselves unaware of facts that would render them liable or implicated. In '' United States v. Jewell'', the court ...
is established in many criminal statutes, which require proof that a defendant acted knowingly or willfully. Courts have held that defendants cannot escape the reach of these statutes by deliberately shielding themselves, from clear evidence of critical facts that are strongly suggested by the circumstances, understanding that those who behave in such manner should be treated as those who had actual knowledge. Lastly, the court established that the DMCA § 512 "safe harbors" were unavailable because Aimster had done nothing to comply reasonably with Section 512(i)'s requirement to establish a policy to terminate repeat infringers and instead even encouraged repeat infringement.


Opinion of the Judge

The opinion was written by Judge
Richard Posner Richard Allen Posner (; born January 11, 1939) is an American legal scholar and retired United States circuit judge who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. A senior lecturer at the University of Chicag ...
, known for his publications on
law and economics Law and economics, or economic analysis of law, is the application of microeconomic theory to the analysis of law. The field emerged in the United States during the early 1960s, primarily from the work of scholars from the Chicago school of econ ...
, and followed closely on the heels of the Ninth Circuit's decision in '' A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.''Richard Posner's Profile a
University of Chicago Law School
/ref>


Conclusion

The decision of the District Court was affirmed, concluding that a
preliminary injunction An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable reme ...
against the file-sharing service was appropriate.


Subsequent developments

Petition for writ of
certiorari In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of a prerogative writ in England, issued by a superior court to direct that the recor ...
to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit denied.''Deep v. Recording Industry Association of America, Inc.'', 555
U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...
br>1126
(2009).


See also

* '' Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.'' *
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (in case citations, 7th Cir.) is the U.S. United States federal court, federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the United States district court, courts in the following United Stat ...
*
Richard Posner Richard Allen Posner (; born January 11, 1939) is an American legal scholar and retired United States circuit judge who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. A senior lecturer at the University of Chicag ...


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:In Re Aimster Copyright Litigation United States copyright case law United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit cases 2003 in United States case law