Capitol Records, Inc. v. MP3Tunes, LLC
Encyclopedia
Capitol Records, Inc. v. MP3tunes, LLC is a 2011 case from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
concerning copyright infringement
and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA). In the case, EMI Music Group and fourteen other record companies (including Capitol Records
) claimed copyright infringement
against MP3tunes, which provides online music storage lockers, and MP3tunes's founder, Michael Robertson. In a decision that has ramifications for the future of online locker services, the court held that MP3tunes qualifies for safe harbor
protection under the DMCA. However, the court found MP3tunes to still be liable for contributory copyright infringement in this case due to its failure to remove infringing songs after receiving takedown notices. The court also held that Robertson is liable for songs he personally copied from unauthorized websites.
founded MP3tunes, which operates two websites. The first, mp3tunes.com, offers personal online storage lockers for music. Users could upload music to their lockers from their computer hard drives, or from third party websites by providing an URL. The second website, sideload.com, is a search engine that finds and links to free music files on the internet. Sideload.com uses an index of websites known to host free music files, and the index is grown from the third party websites that mp3tunes.com users copy music from. When users find free music using sideload.com, they are given the option to "sideload" those files into their lockers at mp3tunes.com. Robertson and other MP3tunes executives have personal accounts with the website and actively sideload songs into their lockers. Additionally, MP3tunes retrieves and displays album cover art from Amazon.com
under a license agreement.
In September 2007, MP3tunes received a takedown notice from EMI Music Group that identified 350 infringing songs and unauthorized websites. EMI demanded that in additional to the list items, MP3tunes must "remove all of EMI's copyrighted works, even those not specifically identified." In response to the notice, MP3tunes removed the unauthorized websites from its link index, but did not remove the infringing songs from users' lockers. MP3tunes took no action regarding works not specified in the notice except to ask EMI for further identification, which EMI declined to give. In November 2007, EMI filed suit for copyright infringement against MP3tunes and Robertson.
, which the court in this decision granted in part and denied in part.
provisions, which conditionally shield online service providers (OSPs) from liability for copyright infringement
. To qualify for protection, the OSP must, among other requirements, implement a policy of terminating users who are repeat infringers, comply with takedown notices, not have actual or "red flag" knowledge of infringement, and not directly benefit from infringement when the OSP has control over the infringing activities. EMI argued that MP3tunes fails these four requirements; the court mostly disagreed, holding that MP3tunes is generally eligible for safe harbor protection. However, MP3tunes is not protected for the infringing songs identified in EMI's takedown notice that it failed to remove from its users' lockers. The court's analysis is detailed below.
, it was only obligated to remove the infringing links specified by EMI.
The court agreed with MP3tunes that a takedown notice must list specific instances of infringement. However, the court also held that MP3tunes was obligated to remove the infringing songs from users' lockers, since MP3tunes tracked the source of each sideloaded file and could easily find files that were copied from the specified infringing links. In contrast, it would be impossible for EMI to externally identify the infringing songs in users' lockers in order to list them in a takedown notice.
protection for the EMI-identified infringing songs in its users' lockers, MP3tunes became liable for them. Accordingly, EMI's motion for summary judgement on its claim for contributory copyright infringement with respect to the songs listed in EMI's takedown notice was granted.
from Robertson and other MP3tunes employees sideloading infringing songs. The court stated that since there was no clear evidence that the MP3tunes employees infringed during their employment, summary judgement on this claim with respect to the employees was denied. On the other hand, because Robertson is a defendant in the case, he is directly liable, so summary judgement on this claim with respect to Robertson was granted.
EMI also claimed that MP3tunes stored a "master copy" of a song on behalf of all users who had that song in their lockers. EMI alleged that the rebroadcasting of this master copy constituted an unauthorized public performance. The court held that MP3tunes' utilization of "a standard data compression algorithm to eliminate redundant digital data" does not constitute the creation of a master copy. Thus, summary judgment on this claim was denied.
, Amazon
, and Apple who are launching cloud music services
, and in Google and Amazon's cases, without license agreements with the music industry. The decision in this case was viewed as "a victory for cloud music" and a first step in "[putting] music locker services on a solid legal foundation" for two main reasons. First, it established DMCA safe harbor protection for online locker services, potentially granting them "broad immunity from copyright liability".. Second, it endorsed data deduplication
, which allows cloud music services to more efficiently allocate storage and reduce the amount of space needed per user. This interpretation was welcomed by cloud music advocates after a previous ruling in Cartoon Network v. CSC Holdings
had indicated that deduplication would make online lockers services liable for copyright infringement.
The case is also notable for being one of the first to suggest that the DMCA's notice-and-takedown provisions apply to sound recordings fixed prior to 1972, which are protected under common law copyright
rather than the federal scheme encompassing the DMCA. Originally confined to a small footnote in the Court's initial decision, it was expanded to over two pages when plaintiff Capitol petitioned the court to reassess its conclusion on the issue. In an amended opinion, Judge Pauley held that while prior case law construing § 301(c) of the Copyright Act held that federal copyright protections do not preempt or limit common law rights in pre-1972 works, they also did not suggest that § 301(c) limits Congress's ability to grant immunity to qualified Internet service providers for the infringement of works fixed before 1972. More particularly, Pauley ruled that EMI's interpretation of § 301(c) as excluding pre-1972 recordings from the DMCA would eviscerate the purpose of the DMCA, and "[w]here an examination of the statute as a whole demonstrates that a party's interpretation would lead to 'absurd or futile results ... plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole,' that interpretation should be rejected."
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York is a federal district court. Appeals from the Southern District of New York are taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case...
concerning copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
(DMCA). In the case, EMI Music Group and fourteen other record companies (including Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
) claimed copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
against MP3tunes, which provides online music storage lockers, and MP3tunes's founder, Michael Robertson. In a decision that has ramifications for the future of online locker services, the court held that MP3tunes qualifies for safe harbor
Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act
The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act is United States federal law that creates a conditional safe harbor for online service providers and other Internet intermediaries by shielding them for their own acts of direct copyright infringement as well as...
protection under the DMCA. However, the court found MP3tunes to still be liable for contributory copyright infringement in this case due to its failure to remove infringing songs after receiving takedown notices. The court also held that Robertson is liable for songs he personally copied from unauthorized websites.
Background
In 2005, Michael RobertsonMichael Robertson
Michael Robertson is the founder and former CEO of MP3.com, which quickly became one of the most popular Internet music sites. In the years following his departure from MP3.com, Robertson launched several small start-up companies, including Linspire, SIPphone, MP3tunes, and Ajax 13...
founded MP3tunes, which operates two websites. The first, mp3tunes.com, offers personal online storage lockers for music. Users could upload music to their lockers from their computer hard drives, or from third party websites by providing an URL. The second website, sideload.com, is a search engine that finds and links to free music files on the internet. Sideload.com uses an index of websites known to host free music files, and the index is grown from the third party websites that mp3tunes.com users copy music from. When users find free music using sideload.com, they are given the option to "sideload" those files into their lockers at mp3tunes.com. Robertson and other MP3tunes executives have personal accounts with the website and actively sideload songs into their lockers. Additionally, MP3tunes retrieves and displays album cover art from Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
under a license agreement.
In September 2007, MP3tunes received a takedown notice from EMI Music Group that identified 350 infringing songs and unauthorized websites. EMI demanded that in additional to the list items, MP3tunes must "remove all of EMI's copyrighted works, even those not specifically identified." In response to the notice, MP3tunes removed the unauthorized websites from its link index, but did not remove the infringing songs from users' lockers. MP3tunes took no action regarding works not specified in the notice except to ask EMI for further identification, which EMI declined to give. In November 2007, EMI filed suit for copyright infringement against MP3tunes and Robertson.
Decision of the Court
Both parties moved for summary judgmentSummary judgment
In law, a summary judgment is a determination made by a court without a full trial. Such a judgment may be issued as to the merits of an entire case, or of specific issues in that case....
, which the court in this decision granted in part and denied in part.
DMCA Safe Harbors
MP3tunes claimed protection under the DMCA safe harborOnline Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act
The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act is United States federal law that creates a conditional safe harbor for online service providers and other Internet intermediaries by shielding them for their own acts of direct copyright infringement as well as...
provisions, which conditionally shield online service providers (OSPs) from liability for copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
. To qualify for protection, the OSP must, among other requirements, implement a policy of terminating users who are repeat infringers, comply with takedown notices, not have actual or "red flag" knowledge of infringement, and not directly benefit from infringement when the OSP has control over the infringing activities. EMI argued that MP3tunes fails these four requirements; the court mostly disagreed, holding that MP3tunes is generally eligible for safe harbor protection. However, MP3tunes is not protected for the infringing songs identified in EMI's takedown notice that it failed to remove from its users' lockers. The court's analysis is detailed below.
Repeat Infringer Policy
EMI alleged that because MP3tunes did not terminate users who had sideloaded infringing music from unauthorized websites, MP3tunes was not executing an adequate repeat infringer policy. The court disagreed, holding that because users could not know whether the source of their music files is infringing or not, the users who sideloaded music for personal use do not constitute repeat infringers. Furthermore, the court found MP3tunes' existing repeat infringer policy, under which MP3tunes terminated 153 users who illegally shared music, to be adequate for safe harbor requirements.Compliance with Takedown Notices
EMI claimed that MP3tunes failed to comply with the takedown notices by not removing infringing songs from users' lockers, and by not removing infringing links to other EMI works not on the list. MP3tunes claimed that per the decision in Viacom v. YoutubeViacom International Inc. v. YouTube, Inc.
Viacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc., No. 07 Civ. 2103, is a U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York case in which Viacom sued YouTube, a video-sharing site owned by Google, alleging that YouTube had engaged in "brazen" and "massive" copyright infringement by allowing users...
, it was only obligated to remove the infringing links specified by EMI.
The court agreed with MP3tunes that a takedown notice must list specific instances of infringement. However, the court also held that MP3tunes was obligated to remove the infringing songs from users' lockers, since MP3tunes tracked the source of each sideloaded file and could easily find files that were copied from the specified infringing links. In contrast, it would be impossible for EMI to externally identify the infringing songs in users' lockers in order to list them in a takedown notice.
Actual or "Red Flag" Knowledge
EMI claimed that MP3tunes had actual and red flag knowledge of infringement because it listed songs from obviously unauthorized websites, with its own executives sideloading songs from these websites. The court disagreed, holding that it was not obvious that the websites were unauthorized from their URL alone, and MP3tunes was not obligated to go to these websites or otherwise investigate them further in order to determine their legitimacy.Benefit and Control of Infringement
EMI claimed that MP3tunes directly benefited from its users' infringement and had the ability to control the infringing activities; the court again disagreed. The court found no direct benefit since MP3tunes' infringing and non-infringing users paid the same fee. Furthermore, the court held that MP3tunes' ability to monitor use or terminate accounts is merely an ability to control its own system, and not an ability to control infringement arising from users' activities and decisions.Copyright Infringement
Since MP3tunes failed to qualify for DMCA safe harborOnline Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act
The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act is United States federal law that creates a conditional safe harbor for online service providers and other Internet intermediaries by shielding them for their own acts of direct copyright infringement as well as...
protection for the EMI-identified infringing songs in its users' lockers, MP3tunes became liable for them. Accordingly, EMI's motion for summary judgement on its claim for contributory copyright infringement with respect to the songs listed in EMI's takedown notice was granted.
Direct Infringement
EMI claimed direct copyright infringementCopyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
from Robertson and other MP3tunes employees sideloading infringing songs. The court stated that since there was no clear evidence that the MP3tunes employees infringed during their employment, summary judgement on this claim with respect to the employees was denied. On the other hand, because Robertson is a defendant in the case, he is directly liable, so summary judgement on this claim with respect to Robertson was granted.
EMI also claimed that MP3tunes stored a "master copy" of a song on behalf of all users who had that song in their lockers. EMI alleged that the rebroadcasting of this master copy constituted an unauthorized public performance. The court held that MP3tunes' utilization of "a standard data compression algorithm to eliminate redundant digital data" does not constitute the creation of a master copy. Thus, summary judgment on this claim was denied.
Impact
This was a closely watched case by companies such as GoogleGoogle
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
, and Apple who are launching cloud music services
Cloud storage
Cloud storage is a model of networked online storage where data is stored on virtualized pools of storage which are generally hosted by third parties. Hosting companies operate large data centers; and people who require their data to be hosted buy or lease storage capacity from them and use it for...
, and in Google and Amazon's cases, without license agreements with the music industry. The decision in this case was viewed as "a victory for cloud music" and a first step in "[putting] music locker services on a solid legal foundation" for two main reasons. First, it established DMCA safe harbor protection for online locker services, potentially granting them "broad immunity from copyright liability".. Second, it endorsed data deduplication
Data deduplication
In computing, data deduplication is a specialized data compression technique for eliminating coarse-grained redundant data. The technique is used to improve storage utilization and can also be applied to network data transfers to reduce the number of bytes that must be sent across a link...
, which allows cloud music services to more efficiently allocate storage and reduce the amount of space needed per user. This interpretation was welcomed by cloud music advocates after a previous ruling in Cartoon Network v. CSC Holdings
Cartoon Network, LP v. CSC Holdings, Inc.
Cartoon Network, LP v. CSC Holdings, Inc., 536 F.3d 121 , was a United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decision regarding copyright infringement in the context of digital video recorders. It is notable for disagreeing with the Ninth Circuit's holding in MAI Systems Corp. v...
had indicated that deduplication would make online lockers services liable for copyright infringement.
The case is also notable for being one of the first to suggest that the DMCA's notice-and-takedown provisions apply to sound recordings fixed prior to 1972, which are protected under common law copyright
Common law copyright
Common law copyright is the legal doctrine which contends that copyright is a natural right and creators are therefore entitled to the same protections anyone would be in regard to tangible and real property...
rather than the federal scheme encompassing the DMCA. Originally confined to a small footnote in the Court's initial decision, it was expanded to over two pages when plaintiff Capitol petitioned the court to reassess its conclusion on the issue. In an amended opinion, Judge Pauley held that while prior case law construing § 301(c) of the Copyright Act held that federal copyright protections do not preempt or limit common law rights in pre-1972 works, they also did not suggest that § 301(c) limits Congress's ability to grant immunity to qualified Internet service providers for the infringement of works fixed before 1972. More particularly, Pauley ruled that EMI's interpretation of § 301(c) as excluding pre-1972 recordings from the DMCA would eviscerate the purpose of the DMCA, and "[w]here an examination of the statute as a whole demonstrates that a party's interpretation would lead to 'absurd or futile results ... plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole,' that interpretation should be rejected."
External links
- mp3tunes.com
- sideload.com
- Timothy B Lee (July 9, 2011). Are Google Music and Amazon Cloud Player Illegal?, Wired.