The Digital Millennium Copyright Act: A Retrospective After Three Years
Mondaq Business Briefing › United States Law Articles in English (2002)
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The Digital Millennium Copyright Act: A Retrospective After Three Years
The Internet poses fundamental challenges to traditional copyright law due to the way it works. The standard operation of the Internet potentially creates broad liability under copyright law both for a company's own acts and for acts by unrelated third parties. The Internet was originally designed as a decentralized network for use by military and academics; engineering efficiency rather than potential legal issues were the focus of its designers. As the Internet has become a mass medium, the legal issues have become of critical importance. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") was enacted to strike a balance between content owners and users in this new medium. This article will review the results of three of the most important cases under the DMCA. To understand the scope of the problem, a brief review of copyright law is useful. Copyright law imposes "absolute liability" for violation of the five traditional copyright rights: reproduction, distribution, modification, public performance and public display. Such liability is described as "absolute" because the copyright owner can receive both injunctive relief (a court order to stop the infringement) and monetary damages whether or not the person violating such rights did so intentionally or by accident. For example, if a company uses Madonna's recording of "Material Girl" as background music for its product demonstration at a trade show, the company has violated the public performance right (as well as probably the reproduction right) in the song, whether or not it intended to do so. Copyright law also imposes liability for actions of third parties in certain circumstances; this liability consists of two different types: vicarious or contributory infringement. "Vicarious infringement" liability is imposed when someone has infringed the copyright owner's rights and the party being sued ("Defendant") has a relationship with the actual infringer which makes it unfair not to impose liability on the Defendant. Typically, the Defendant must have the "right and ability to supervise" the infringer and an "obvious and direct financial interest" in the infringement. The most common type of vicarious liability is a nightclub owner who benefits financially by selling more tickets when a band performs music in his nightclub. If the...
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- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit - A&M Records, Inc., a Corporation; Geffen Records, Inc., a Corporation; Interscope Records; Sony Music Entertainment, Inc.; Mca Records, Inc.; Atlantic Recording Corp.; Island Records, Inc.; Motown Record Co.; Capitol Records, Inc., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Napster, Inc., Defendant-Appellant. Jerry Leiber, Individually and Doing Business As, Jerry Leiber Music; Mike Stoller and Frank Music Corp., on Behalf of Themselves and all Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Napster, Inc., Defendant-Appellant., 239 F.3d 1004 (9th Cir. 2001)
- U.S. Code - Title 17: Copyrights - 17 USC 512 - Sec. 512. Limitations on liability relating to material online
- U.S. Code - Title 17: Copyrights - 17 USC 1201 - Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems
- U.S. Code - Title 17: Copyrights - 17 USC 1001 - Sec. 1001. Definitions
- U.S. Supreme Court - Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.,, 464 U.S. 417 (1984)
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