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Action Brought Under DMCA and CFAA Dismissed (Part I)
In LivePerson, Inc. v. 24/7 Customer Inc., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3688, No. 1:2014cv01559 (Jan. 16, 2015), the Southern District of New York dismissed a complaint alleging copyright infringement, a...
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Pleading Removal of Copyright Management Information Under the DMCA (and a...
In Fischer v. Forrest, 14 Civ. 1304 (PAE); 14 Civ. 1307 (PAE) (S.D.N.Y. Jan 13, 2015), the court denied a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss a suit alleging copyright and trademark infringements. Of...
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A Reminder That Website Agreements Are Usually Enforceable
Long before the Internet, courts were not reluctant to enforce adhesion contracts. This willingness is one thing the Internet age has not changed. A good reminder – and lessons for parties seeking to...
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Software Copyright Infringement Defenses: Ownership of a Copy and Implied...
A defendant accused of infringing a software copyright was, according to facts plead in the plaintiff’s complaint, an owner of a copy of the software under 17 U.S.C. § 117(a)(1). Further, the facts...
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Use of Software After Expiration of License Is Copyright Infringement
A software owner was granted summary judgment of copyright infringement where its licensee had breached the applicable software license agreement, and continued to use the software after the agreement...
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Software Licensee’s Creation of Derivative Work Results in an Injunction
In case you doubted it, seemingly boilerplate provisions in software license agreements that prohibit the creation of derivative works do mean something, as exemplified in EyePartner, Inc. v. Kor Media...
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First Sale Doctrine Inapplicable to Antitrust Claims Concerning Licensed...
The first sale doctrine governing transfers of copyrighted works could not be used to allege that statements made to potential customers were “false, predatory or anti-competitive.” Int’l Equip....
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Third Party Affirmative Defenses to Software Copyright Infringement
A license, either express or implied, may be an affirmative defense to software copyright infringement. However, a recent case, brought by Oracle against a vendor who had provided services to Oracle’s...
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Ninth Circuit Affirms Inapplicability of Copyright First Sale Doctrine to...
The Ninth Circuit has affirmed a district court decision (reported in this blog) holding that a restrictive software license is not a “sale” for purposes of the federal copyright laws, and that the...
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Use of Copyrighted Software’s Output and Mere Downloading of Copy Held Not to...
Neither using output from copyrighted software, nor downloading (but not installing or using) the copyrighted software, constituted actionable copyright infringement under the US copyright statute....
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Copying the Look and Feel of Tetris Is Software Copyright Infringement
Xio Interactive did not dispute that it blatantly copied the look and feel of the Tetris video game, even if not its source code. After Xio’s Mino game was posted on Apple’s iTunes store, Tetris...
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No Copyright Protection for Java APIs: A Win for Google
A significant statement of software copyright law has come in a very high-profile case: Java API packages were held not protectable under U.S. copyright law in Oracle America, Inc. v. Google, Inc., No....
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When Is Software a Work for Hire?
A recent California case provides a good illustration of different possible grounds for finding that software is a work made for hire under the Copyright Act. Siniouguine v. Mediachase Ltd., CV...
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Copyright Infringement and Software Version Control
Enforcing a software copyright depends on good source code version control. This is because enforcing a software copyright depends on being able to produce the version of software whose copyright is...
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Are Links on a Social Network Contributory Copyright Infringement?
Because it was not satisfied that a social network, hosting links to copyrighted videos, was a contributory infringer, the Seventh Circuit has vacated a preliminary injunction against the social...
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Are Webpages “Published” Under U.S. Copyright Law?
Allegedly infringed webpages were held not to be “publications” under U.S. copyright law. Rogers v. The Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan Houston, Inc., No. H-10-3741 (Aug. 15, 2012). The...
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Copyright First Sale Doctrine and Burdens of Proof
Adobe, having been precluded from relying on license agreements that it failed to produce during discovery, has lost a summary judgment motion on its claim for copyright infringement against a...
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Path Cleared for Ninth Circuit to Address Copyright First Sale Doctrine...
Adobe has been granted partial judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) in a copyright infringement case so that the Ninth Circuit may determine which party bears the burden of proof when...
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Cert. Denied in Google Books Copyright Case: Big Win for Fair Use Doctrine
The U.S. Supreme Court recently denied review of the Second Circuit decision in The Authors Guild et al. v. Google Inc., 804 F.3d 202 (2d Cir. 2015), finalizing a decision allowing Google to continue...
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DMCA Safe Harbor Covers Content from Independent Contractors
The Tenth Circuit recently held that a website provider could not be held liable for copyright infringement for the unauthorized use of copyrighted photographs in content created by its contractors....
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