The rise of the internet and digital media opened the flood gates for an onset of copyright infringement cases.
For the last seven years, and counting, YOUTUBE has been involved in its own legal issues. From Viacom to the National Music Publishers Association, YOUTUBE has been under attack. What is at stake? For content creators...protection of the exclusive rights afforded to them by the Copyright Act of 1976. (We will discuss these exclusive rights in a future post.) For YOUTUBE...its mass appeal. These two cases have yet to be resolved by the courts.
Other sites which live off of user uploaded content are also under attack. What do all of these complaints have in common? The fight against piracy.
Uploading to the internet content for which your are not the copyright owner, or have not been authorized by the copyright owner, is illegal.
Recently, the US District Court for the District of Florida found HOTFILE liable for copyright infringement. The Court rejected HOTFILE's defense that is was protected under provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).
What was HOTFILE's crime? It paid users to upload files containing copies of movies, TV series and others unto its servers with the intent that other users could download the content. HOTFILE claimed to be a legitimate storage service. However, it did not pay users to upload personal files.
This is the first time a US Court has ruled on the issue of whether or not "cyberlockers" can be held liable for copyright infringement due to their business practices. This surely marks an important moment in copyright infringement cases regarding pirated content, and will not be the last of its kind.
UPDATE: On December 3, 2013, the court entered judgment in this case, and ordered HOTFILE to pay MPAA $80million in damages and to "cease operations unless it employs copyright filtering technologies that prevent infringement of the studios’ works."
For the last seven years, and counting, YOUTUBE has been involved in its own legal issues. From Viacom to the National Music Publishers Association, YOUTUBE has been under attack. What is at stake? For content creators...protection of the exclusive rights afforded to them by the Copyright Act of 1976. (We will discuss these exclusive rights in a future post.) For YOUTUBE...its mass appeal. These two cases have yet to be resolved by the courts.
Other sites which live off of user uploaded content are also under attack. What do all of these complaints have in common? The fight against piracy.
Uploading to the internet content for which your are not the copyright owner, or have not been authorized by the copyright owner, is illegal.
Recently, the US District Court for the District of Florida found HOTFILE liable for copyright infringement. The Court rejected HOTFILE's defense that is was protected under provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).
What was HOTFILE's crime? It paid users to upload files containing copies of movies, TV series and others unto its servers with the intent that other users could download the content. HOTFILE claimed to be a legitimate storage service. However, it did not pay users to upload personal files.
This is the first time a US Court has ruled on the issue of whether or not "cyberlockers" can be held liable for copyright infringement due to their business practices. This surely marks an important moment in copyright infringement cases regarding pirated content, and will not be the last of its kind.
UPDATE: On December 3, 2013, the court entered judgment in this case, and ordered HOTFILE to pay MPAA $80million in damages and to "cease operations unless it employs copyright filtering technologies that prevent infringement of the studios’ works."