Though most people can be forgiven for missing it, two Supreme Court Decisions and a District Court granting a motion for summary judgment made a fair bit of copyright news this week. In a pair of unanimous decisions the Supreme Court settled two statutory disputes relevant to a rightsholders’ ability to enforce his copyrights. And pursuant to findings at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the District Court for the Central District of California granted a motion for summary judgment against VidAngel for its infringement of major Hollywood motion pictures.
“Registration” Means USCO Approval
In Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, Justice Ginsburg wrote the opinion holding that there is no way for the Court to read the copyright statute §411(a) other than to mean that the Copyright Office must grant Registration of a work before a rightsholder may litigate to remedy an alleged infringement.
This decision resolves a court split over the issue, with the counter argument contending that filing the application is tantamount to “registration” and that a rightsholder should be allowed to proceed with legal action while the USCO is processing the application. Ginsburg and the other eight Justices found that reading of the statute unpersuasive, but the opinion also recognizes the practical challenge faced by rightsholders given that it takes an average six to seven months to receive a Certificate of Registration.
This is especially acute in a time when online infringement may be almost instantaneous, and it is not impossible that there may be some legislative response to address these issues, not the least of which would be increasing resources for the USCO. That said, the House Judiciary Committee does seem a little busy right now. (See further discussion here.)
“Full Costs” Means Less Full Than Some Hoped
From the opposite ideological end of the bench, Justice Kavanaugh wrote the opinion in Rimini Street v. Oracle USA, another unanimous decision settling yet another statutory interpretation, this time §505 pertaining to the meaning of the term “full costs.” At issue was the question as to whether recoverable legal costs under the copyright statute may extend beyond the six categories of “taxable” costs that a court may award to a litigant in a copyright case.
After Oracle prevailed in its copyright infringement suit against Rimini Street, it sought $12.8 million to recover its costs for expert witnesses, jury consulting, and e-discovery, which are not enumerated under Title 28 federal statutes pertaining to the types of costs a claimant may recover. For context, I recommend Kevin Madigan’s analysis posted at the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property, in which he contends that this decision is an incomplete reading and, as a practical matter, may disadvantage defendants as well as complainants in copyright cases.
VidAngel’s Flight Seems All But Over
Finally, in the major motion picture studios’ case against VidAngel, a California District Court, finding no triable issues of fact, granted the studios’ motion for summary judgment this week. As described in posts here and here, VidAngel is the VOD service that provided unlicensed streams of major motion pictures with options to “filter” out the naughty bits—sex, swearing, blasphemy, etc.—its base of customers preferred not to see or hear.
Although filtering is permitted by law with devices designed for that purpose to be used in one’s own home, VidAngel endeavored to construct a convoluted business model in order to contend that its process of copying, filtering, and streaming films to customers for what amounted to rental fees was nothing more than an extension of the individual consumer’s right to filter. All of the sanctified streamer’s defenses failed, and the company is held to have infringed the studios’ exclusive rights of reproduction and public performance as well as violated the anti-circumvention provisions under §1201 of the DMCA for decrypting DVD and Blu-Ray disks in order to create the files necessary for its service.
I may write a more extensive post about the outcome in VidAngel, which is an instructive case on a number of levels, but one that sticks out at the moment is the company’s attempt to assert fair use in defense of its circumventing DRM pursuant to the DMCA. As the District Court notes, there is no fair use defense for violating §1201, though one could easily make this mistake based on the confusion and debate surrounding this statute.
The distinction is that the Copyright Office has granted exemptions from the provisions of this section of the DMCA for specific uses (e.g. education, commentary, research) that are likely to be fair uses. This is not the same thing as asserting a fair use defense for circumventing DRM for a purpose not already exempted by the USCO. And VidAngel’s purpose in making entire motion pictures available (minus a bit of skin and a few curse words) does not come anywhere close to being considered for such an exemption.
