ExtortionLetterInfo Forums

Retired Forums => Righthaven Lawsuits Forum => Topic started by: Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi) on March 16, 2012, 01:56:51 PM

Title: an important point in last week righthaven ruling.
Post by: Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi) on March 16, 2012, 01:56:51 PM
THE COURT HEREBY DECLARES AS FOLLOWS:

1. That Counterclaimants Democratic Underground and David Allen have committed no volitional act giving rise to a claim for direct copyright infringement. Counterclaimants neither posted the excerpt nor encouraged the posting. Nor did they have any knowledge of the posting until after this suit was filed. See Religious Tech. Ctr. v. Netcom On-line Commnc’n Servs., 907
F. Supp. 1361 (N.D. Cal. 1995) (direct copyright infringement requires “some element of volition or causation which is lacking where a defendant’s system is merely used to create a copy by a third party”); see also CoStar Group, Inc. v. LoopNet, Inc., 373 F.3d 544 (4th Cir. 2004) and Cartoon Network LP v. CSC Holdings, Inc,, 536 F.3d 121 (2d Cir. 2008).

" Righthaven relied heavily on the fact that it could sue sites that had not officially designated a DMCA agent, arguing that if you don’t do that, you don’t get any of the DMCA safe harbor protections. While you absolutely should designate an agent if you run a blog and allow any commenting on your site, I’ve always suspected that if it went to court, a site that did not designate an agent wouldn’t automatically be liable for postings of its users. That’s because it’s just common sense that liability should be on the person doing the posting, not the tool used to do so — even if the owners of the tool didn’t designate a DMCA agent."

http://www.phphosts.org/blog/2012/03/new-ruling-in-old-righthaven-case-makes-two-important-points-protecting-fair-use-and-secondary-liability/