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In re Aimster Copyright Litigation
Court	United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Full case name	In re Aimster Copyright Litigation. Appeal of: John Deep, Defendant.
Decided	June 30, 2003
Citation	334 F.3d 643 (7th Cir. 2003)
Court membership
Judges sitting	Richard Posner, Kenneth Francis Ripple, & Ann Claire Williams
Case opinions
Majority: Posner

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 addressed copyright infringement claims brought against Aimster, concluding that a preliminary injunction against the file-sharing service was appropriate, because the copyright owners were likely to prevail on their claims of contributory infringement, the fact that the services was capable of having non-infringing user was not enough reason to reverse the district court's decision. The appellate Court also noted that defendant could have limited the quantity of the infringements if he had eliminated an encryption system feature and if it had monitored the use of its systems, this made Defendant not to fall within the safe harbour of of 17 U.S.C.S. § 512(i) and could not be used as an excuse to not know about the infringement, the Court also analyzed that Plaintiff's harm was irreparable and outweighed any harm to the Defendant created by the injunction.

Background

The opinion was written by Judge Richard Posner, known for his publications on law and economics, and followed closely on the heels of the Ninth Circuit's decision in A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. 239 F.3d (9th Cir. 2001).

Recording industry owners of copyrights in musical performances brought contributory and vicarious infringement action, a Type of Secondary liability, against Internet website operator called Aimster,a company such as Napster which facilitated the swapping of digital copies of songs over the internet. .

Owners of copyrighted popular music claim that Deep’s ‘‘Aimster’’ Internet service (recently renamed ‘‘Madster’’) is a contributory and vicarious infringer of these copyrights. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 252 F.Supp.2d 634, Marvin E. Aspen, J., granted preliminary injunction for plaintiffs,which shutdowns Defendant's service until the suit has been resolved, Aimster appeals from this preliminary injunction to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. .

Someone who wants to use Aimster’s basic service for the first time to swap files, downloads Aimster's software and then has to register on the system, after doing this he may designate any other registered user as a ‘‘buddy’’, withwhom he may communicate directly whenever he is online, and having the capability of interchanging music files. If the user has no buddies, then all the users of the system become automatically he’s buddies to share files. The defendants argued that, unlike Napster, they designed their technology in such a way that they had no way of monitoring the content of swapped files.

Opinion of the Court

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, are the direct infringers, 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, in this case of fair-use privilege will not make the Aimster a contributory infringer. As mentioned in the Sony decision, 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, the predecessor of today’s videocassette recorders, Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 104 S. Ct. 774, 78 L. Ed. 2d 574 (1984), also known as the "Betamax case"' , explaining 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 in- fringer. In re Aimster Copyright Litig., 252 F. Supp. 2d 634, 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 the copying that Aimster service's contribute in producing, the court explained that although the Court in Sony, emphasized that the plaintiffs had failed to show that they had sustained substantial harm from Sony's video recorder, the Court 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 is also clear that eventhough 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 Sony 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 feature of Aimster’s service prevented Deep from knowing what songs were being copied by the users of his system, he lacked the knowledge of infringing uses that liability for contributory infringement requires. The opinion also makes 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, the facts of the case showed that a tutorial for the Aimster software, showed as its only examples of file sharing the sharing of copyrighted works, including copyrighted music that Plaintiffs had notified Aimster continued to be affected by Aimster’s users. 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 is knowledge, in copyright law (where indeed it may be enough that the defendant should have known of the direct infringement, Casella v. Morris, 820 F.2d 362, 365 (11th Cir.1987); 2 Goldstein, supra, § 6.1, p. 6:6), as it is in the law generally. See, e.g., Louis Vuitton S.A. v. Lee, 875 F.2d 584, 590 (7th Cir.1989) (contributory trademark infringement). The doctrine of willful blindness 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.

Conclusion

The decision of the District Court was affirmed.

Subsequent Developments

Petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit denied.

See also

Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.

United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

Richard Posner

External links

Text of the Opinion at http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?page=1&xmldoc=2003977334F3d643_1912.xml&docbase=CsLwAr2-1986-2006&SizeDisp=7

Category:United States copyright case law Category:United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit cases Category:2003 in United States case law