Bit Parts

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has upheld a preliminary injunction that shut down Aimster pending resolution of the music industry's litigation against the Internet file-sharing service. In Re: Aimster Copyright Litigation, 02-4125. The appeals court agreed '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 a contributory infringer,' but added it is 'not necessarily a controlling factor, however, as the recording industry believes.' The court rejected the industry's argument that contributory infringement can be established by anything 'more than a mere showing that a product may be used for infringing purposes.' The 7th Circuit thus disagreed with the 9th Circuit's ruling in A&M Records Inc. v. Napster Inc., 239 F.3d 1004, (2001), which suggested that actual knowledge of specific infringing activity is enough to establish contributory infringement. But the 7th Circuit rejected Aimster's argument that the music industry must show actual monetary loss from unauthorized Internet file-sharing. The appeals court also found that the tutorial Aimster provides that cites the sharing of copyrighted music as the only example of how the software may be used is an 'invitation to infringement.' The court further noted that the Aimster defendants failed to provide sufficient evidence that Aimster was actually used for non-infringing purposes.

More Web Infringement Rulings

Last month's refusal by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to stay a lower court order requiring Verizon to reveal to the names of its customers who illegally download music, has received widespread attention. Recording Industry Association of America Inc. v. Verizon Internet Services Inc., 03-7015. Less known is a recent ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii that under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a copyright owner does not have to conduct an investigation to demonstrate actual infringement before sending an Internet Service Provider a notice demanding that an allegedly infringing website be shut down. Rossi v. Motion Picture Association of America, 0200239.

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