Technology & Marketing Law Blog
Eric Goldman
April 17, 2020
This is a copyright infringement lawsuit against Charter, an Internet access provider, for users’ copyright infringements by file-sharing. I comprehensively blogged the magistrate report in this case back in October. In that blog post, I described the magistrate’s report as “a major win for copyright owners in their irrepressible quest to deputize IAPs as their copyright sheriffs.” Charter objected to the magistrate report’s analysis of vicarious copyright infringement. The district court judge’s response opinion is…UGH.
…
Conclusion
In my prior post, I wrote: “copyright owners aren’t going to stop until they turn IAPs into their copyright cops. This has their dream for decades, and this ruling moves one step closer to it.”
In particular, the opinion highlights how we desperately need a well-functioning 512(a) safe harbor for Internet access providers. Over and over again, the court cites facts that just show Charter offered Internet access, which the court treats as enough to establish a prima facie case of vicarious copyright infringement. That can’t be right.
The damage in this case can be traced to prior rulings requiring that IAPs “terminate repeat infringers” based on notices of claimed infringement rather than judicial findings of actual user infringement. By creating that bypass, copyright owners can work around 512(a), which opens up a Pandora’s box of liability that does not bode well for the future of Internet access.
The Senate is currently undertaking a 20 year review of the DMCA. It would be wise for Congress to figure out why 512(a) failed to achieve its purported purpose–and how it might be rehabilitated.
Finally, this ruling shows how far the vicarious copyright infringement doctrine has strayed from its roots. Vicarious copyright infringement started as a branchoff of agency law. The IAP-subscriber relationship bears absolutely no resemblance to a principal-agent relationship, yet here we are. We need better limiting principles to the vicarious copyright infringement doctrine so that it does not extend, illogically, to typical vendor-customer relationships.
Case citation: Warner Records Inc. v. Charter Communications, Inc., No. 19-cv-00874-RBJ-MEH (D. Colo. April 15, 2020)
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The content in this post was found at https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2020/04/another-terrible-copyright-ruling-on-iaps-liability-for-users-file-sharing-warner-v-charter.htm Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com