Reconciling Napster with the Sony decision and recent amendments to copyright law - American Business Law Journal - 2001-10-01

" The Ninth Circuit's emphasis on knowledge and control as the key elements in determining a claim for contributory infringement in Napster, follows the approach taken in Religious Technology Center v.

Netcom On-Line Communication.183 In Netcom, the District Court for the Northern District of California held that whether an Internet service provider (ISP) could be held liable for contributory copyright infringement depended on whether it had control over the use of its system and whether it had knowledge of the alleged infringing activity.184 The case involved a dispute between a minister-turned-- critic of the Church of Scientology who had used copyrighted material owned by the church without permission and had posted that material on a bulletin board service which was accessed through the ISP.185 In the Netcom decision, the court makes no reference to the substantial noninfringing uses of the ISP, although it is assumed that most of its activity was noninfringing. The court's analysis focused solely on whether the ISP retained control over its system and whether it knew of the infringing activity and could, therefore, have acted to remove it before it was widely disseminated.186 In Napster, the Ninth Circuit's reliance on Netcom indicates that defending a claim for contributory copyright infringement begins with an inquiry into the defendant's knowledge of the infringing activity, not whether the product or service is capable of a substantial noninfringing use. "

read the whole article at:

http://beta.yellowbrix.com/pages/beta/Story.nsp?story_id=27680525&ID=newsreal&scategory=AP+Top+Headlines&

[The American Business Law Journal is a quarterly law review published by the Academy of Legal Studies in Business. The journal is very selective and is double-blind, peer reviewed.]

Go Back