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CoStar Reopens Settled Fixation Issue in Online Digital Environment

By Mitchell Zimmerman
August 31, 2005

In a little-noticed and as yet un-cited alternative holding last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit undermined a previously unbroken line of cases holding that electronic copies of digital works are “fixed” within the meaning of the Copyright Act if they exist in the random access memory (“RAM”) of a computer. CoStar Group, Inc. v. LoopNet, Inc., 373 F.3d 544 (4th Cir. 2004).

LoopNet was an Internet service provider whose Web site allowed its subscribers, generally real estate brokers, to post listings of commercial real estate listings ' including photographs of the properties ' on the Internet. CoStar claimed that LoopNet was directly liable for copyright infringement because LoopNet subscribers uploaded CoStar's copyrighted photos of properties with LoopNet's approval.

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