Business software developer SAS brought suit against competitor World Programming Limited (WPL) alleging breach of license and copyright infringement. The parties were also involved in litigation involving similar claims in the United Kingdom. After a jury trial, WPL appealed the district court’s decision that the UK litigation did not preclude the claims here.
On appeal, the Fourth Circuit agreed, observing many legal and factual differences between the US and UK litigation. The US suit alleged violations of US copyright and focused only on sales within the US, unlike the UK suit. On the breach of contract claims, the court refused to recognize the UK judgment based on disagreement between the public policies of the state of North Carolina and the European Union (EU). The court said, “The EU Directive that was dispositive of the contract claims in the UK litigation has no equivalent in North Carolina. Instead, the United States has taken an approach that is more protective of intellectual property, and North Carolina courts have taken an approach that is more protective of the sanctity of contract, including broad deference to parties to elect the governing law. Granting the UK judgment preclusive effect would frustrate these policy goals by barring a North Carolina company from vindicating its rights under North Carolina law on the basis of the EU’s contrary policies.”
WPL petitioned the Supreme Court for review, which it denied October 1, 2018.
Procedural History
Status: Supreme Court denied certiorari. (Oct 1, 2018) Fourth Circuit affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded in part the District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina’s ruling. (October 24, 2017)
Fourth Circuit decision (October 24, 2017)
Disney, Twentieth Century Fox and other movie studios sued VidAngel for copyright infringement and violating DMCA section 1201 for VidAngel’s service, which decrypts DVDs and filters “objectionable” content from movies and TV shows, and streams the programs to its customers. In December 2016, the United States District Court for the Central District of California issued a preliminary injunction against VidAngel, holding that its service violated Plaintiffs’ exclusive rights to reproduce and publicly perform their copyrighted works pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 106(1) and § 106(4), and violated DMCA section 1201(a)(1)(A) by circumventing the technological protection measures on DVDs and Blu-ray discs. It further rejected VidAngel’s argument that a content filtering service complies with the Family Home Movie Act (FMA) as well as its fair use defense. VidAngel appealed the ruling to the Ninth Circuit. On August 24, 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s ruling.
On March 9, 2019, the District Court for the Central District of California granted Summary Judgment on Liability in favor of the plaintiffs. Following that ruling, a jury awarded the plaintiffs $62.4 million in damages.
Procedural History
Status: Ninth Circuit affirmed. (August 24, 2017); District Court for the Central District of California granted Summary Judgment on Liability (June 9, 2019); Jury awarded damages. (June 17, 2019)
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BWP Media sued Polyvore, Inc. – the Internet Service Provider behind the website that allows users to share and edit digital photographs – for copyright infringement. In July 2016, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York held on a motion for summary judgment that the Sony-Betamax case bars all claims for contributory copyright infringement whenever a product or service is “capable of substantial noninfringing uses.” BWP Media appealed to the Second Circuit.
The Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s conclusion that the secondary infringement claims were abandoned.
On direct infringement, the court held that there was a dispute of material fact regarding whether Polyvore created multiple copies of BWP’s photos that were not requested by Polyvore users. On the DMCA safe harbor defense, the circuit rejected BWP’s claim that Polyvore’s stripping of metadata disqualified it from safe harbor protection as an interference with a standard technical measure, but found a dispute of material fact regarding whether additional, unrequested copies of files uploaded by users to Polyvore’s service were made solely to facilitate access by users under 512(c).
The issue of the volitional conduct requirement split the panel, and each of the three judges issued a separate concurring opinion expressing their views on the topic.
Procedural History
Second Circuit decision (April 17, 2019)
Southern District of New York (July 15, 2016)
Status: Status: Second Circuit affirmed in part; vacated in part; and remanded in part. (April 17, 2019)
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