holding that “Aereo publicly performs copyrighted works, in violation of the Copyright Act’s Transmit Clause, when it sells its subscribers a technologically complex service that allows them to watch television programs over the Internet at about the same time as the programs are broadcast over the air.” However, the dissenting opinion argued that turning a secondary liability case into a direct liability case is a mistake and may work serious injury to the general public. Justice Scalia strongly objected to the majority view and noted that “Aereo does not perform at all. The Court manages to reach the opposite conclusion only by disregarding widely accepted rules for service-provider . . . liability and adopting in their place an improvised standard ("looks-like-cable-TV") that will sow confusion for years to come.”...
The footage of an actress' minor role in an unreleased adventure film titled “Desert Warrior”, was modified and incorporated into an anti-Islamic film titled the "Innocence of the Muslims", which was later uploaded to Youtube. The actress then received death threats from an Egyptian cleric. After Google refused to take it down from Youtube, plaintiff actress sought a restraining order seeking removal and that posting of the video infringed the copyright in her performance. 9th Circuit Judge Kozinski ruled for the actress, holding that she had an independent copyright interest in her performance (although filmmaker had an implied license to use her performance, the filmmaker exceeded the bounds of the license); and that the actress faced irreparable harm absent an injunction.
Capitol Records (CR), a record company, sued ReDigi, which operated an online marketplace for buying and selling pre-owned legally downloaded music, for copyright infringement regarding reproduction and distribution rights in sound recordings owned by CR. The Court held in favour of the plaintiff-copyright holder and rejected ReDigi’s “first sale” and “fair use” defenses. The Court sustained that Redigi's directly infringed CR's copyrights. In particular, the Court held that (1) ReDigi’s making unauthorized transfers of digital music files over the internet was reproduction and distribution for the purpose of copyright protection; (2) the “first sale” doctrine did not cover ReDigi’s distribution of CR’s copyrighted works; (3) ReDigi was also liable for contributory infringement and vicarious infringement of CR’s...
Music publisher brought action against operator of publicly accessible website, Veoh, which enabled users to share videos with other users and website’s investors, alleging direct and secondary copyright infringement. District court dismissed the claims against investors and granted summary judgment to website operator. Circuit judge held that Veoh was entitled to the DMCA safe harbor protection, that is the site has no obligation to police for infringing content on its site, and that publishers failed to state claims against investors for contributory infringement, vicarious liability and inducement of infringement.
Viacom, owners of copyrighted videos field infringement action against owner and operator of website that allowed users to upload video files free of charge. Second circuit held that actual knowledge or awareness of facts or circumstances that indicated specific and identifiable instances of infringement was required to disqualify online service provider from DMCA safe harbor.