BMG Music v. Gonzalez

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BMG Music v. Gonzalez
Seal of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.svg
Court United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Full case nameBMG Music, et al. v. Cecelia Gonzalez
DecidedDecember 9, 2005
Citation(s)430 F.3d 888
Case history
Prior action(s)2005 WL 106592 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 7, 2005 ) (granting summary judgment for plaintiffs)
Subsequent action(s)cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S. Ct. 2032, 164 L. Ed. 2d 782 (2006)
Holding
A user of file-sharing software who downloads unauthorized copies of copyrighted songs cannot claim that they were merely "sampling" the works for possible future purchase, and that claim does not qualify for the fair use defense.
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting Frank H. Easterbrook, Terence T. Evans, and Ann Claire Williams

BMG Music v. Gonzalez, 430 F.3d 888 (7th Cir. 2005), was a court decision in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that a record company could sue a person who engaged in online sharing of music files for copyright infringement. [1] The decision is noteworthy for rejecting the defendant's fair use defense, which had rested upon her contention that she was merely "sampling" songs with the intention of possibly purchasing the downloaded songs in the future, a practice known informally as "try before you buy".

Contents

Facts

Over a period of several weeks, defendant Cecelia Gonzalez downloaded an estimated 1,370 copyrighted songs onto her computer using the KaZaA peer-to-peer file sharing service, without authorization from the holders of the copyrights of the underlying compositions and sound recordings. Gonzalez owned compact discs containing some fraction of the songs that she downloaded. The parties disagreed on precisely how many of Gonzalez's downloads represented songs that she already owned on CD, but it was undisputed that she had never owned authorized copies of 30 of the songs that she downloaded. Gonzalez retained at least these 30 songs on her computer's hard drive even after deciding not to purchase them on CD. [1]

Lower court proceedings

Four recording companies who owned the copyrights for the songs that Gonzalez downloaded filed a lawsuit accusing her of copyright infringement. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled in favor of the plaintiff record companies. The district court rejected Gonzalez's fair use defense against the infringement claim. The court awarded the companies $22,500 in statutory damages (representing the statutory minimum of $750 per song multiplied by the defendant's 30 infringing downloads), and issued a permanent injunction forbidding Gonzalez from downloading copyrighted recordings owned by the plaintiffs in the future. [2] Gonzalez appealed to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Appeals court decision

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court's decision in its entirety. The circuit court first reasoned that the songs that Gonzalez had downloaded were infringing copies of the copyrighted originals, rejecting her analogy to the time shifting doctrine handed down in the Supreme Court's landmark Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. precedent. [3]

In its analysis of the fair use argument, the circuit court considered the four factors of that defense that may or may not have worked in Gonzalez's favor. The court found that her unauthorized downloading of copyright songs did not qualify for the fair use defense, stating: "Gonzalez was not engaged in a nonprofit use; she downloaded (and kept) whole copyrighted songs [...]; and she did this despite the fact that these works often are sold per song as well as per album.." [1]

Gonzalez argued that downloading songs for the purpose of "sampling" would have a positive effect on the market for those songs, spurring sales of the songs that she enjoyed enough to purchase legitimately. The circuit court declared that this argument was both factually unsupported and inconsistent with the Supreme Court's then-recent decision about file sharing in MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. [4] and related cases on modern Internet-enabled copyright infringement:

As she tells the tale, downloading on a try-before-you-buy basis is good advertising for copyright proprietors, expanding the value of their inventory. The Supreme Court thought otherwise in Grokster, with considerable empirical support. As file sharing has increased over the last four years, the sales of recorded music have dropped by approximately 30%. Perhaps other economic factors contributed, but the events likely are related. Music downloaded for free from the Internet is a close substitute for purchased music; many people are bound to keep the downloaded files without buying originals. That is exactly what Gonzalez did for at least 30 songs. It is no surprise, therefore, that the only appellate decision on point has held that downloading copyrighted songs cannot be defended as fair use, whether or not the recipient plans to buy songs she likes well enough to spring for. [1]

The circuit court also upheld the award of $22,500 in statutory damages against Gonzalez, recognizing that this amount represented the then-current minimum award provided under the 1976 Copyright Act for per-song infringement claims. Finally, the circuit court upheld the district court's permanent injunction prohibiting Gonzalez from downloading copyrighted works without authorization in the future. [1]

Gonzalez appealed again to the Supreme Court of the United States, but her request for certiorari was denied. [5]

Impact

The circuit court's ruling in BMG Music v. Gonzalez was praised in some quarters for clarifying the ability of copyright holders to initiate suits against people who engaged in unauthorized file sharing on the Internet, [6] and for influencing the development of paid music services like iTunes as a solution to unauthorized copying. [7] Conversely, some scholars described the ruling as enabling the persecution of individuals like Gonzalez by record companies to make a point about widespread file sharing, most of which remained uncontrolled and unprosecuted, [8] [9] thus leaving unsettled questions about the appropriate legal responses to new consumer behaviors. [10]

Related Research Articles

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Grokster Ltd. was a privately owned software company based in Nevis, West Indies that created the Grokster peer-to-peer file-sharing client in 2001 that used the FastTrack protocol. Grokster Ltd. was rendered extinct in late 2005 by the United States Supreme Court's decision in MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. The court ruled against Grokster's peer-to-peer file sharing program for computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, effectively forcing the company to cease operations.

In computer networks, download means to receive data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar systems. This contrasts with uploading, where data is sent to a remote server. A download is a file offered for downloading or that has been downloaded, or the process of receiving such a file.

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<i>UMG Recordings, Inc. v. MP3.com, Inc.</i> Landmark case of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

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MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., 545 U.S. 913 (2005), is a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled unanimously that the defendants, peer-to-peer file sharing companies Grokster and Streamcast, could be held liable for inducing copyright infringement by users of their file sharing software. The plaintiffs were a consortium of 28 entertainment companies, led by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios.

<i>A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.</i> US legal case

A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004 was a landmark intellectual property case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court ruling that the defendant, peer-to-peer file sharing service Napster, could be held liable for contributory infringement and vicarious infringement of copyright. This was the first major case to address the application of copyright laws to peer-to-peer file sharing.

<i>In re Aimster Copyright Litigation</i>

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<i>Sony BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum</i> U.S. court case

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<i>Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. v. Fung</i>

Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. v. Fung 710 F.3d 1020 No. 10-55946, was a United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit case in which seven film studios including Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Disney and Twentieth Century Fox sued Gary Fung, the owner of isoHunt Web Technologies, Inc., for contributory infringement of their copyrighted works. The panel affirmed in part and vacated in part the decision of United States District Court for the Central District of California that the services and websites offered by isoHunt Web Technologies allowed third parties to download infringing copies of Columbia's works. Ultimately, Fung had "red flag knowledge" of the infringing activity on his systems, and therefore IsoHunt was held ineligible for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act § 512(c) safe harbor.

Contributory copyright infringement is a way of imposing secondary liability for infringement of a copyright. It is a means by which a person may be held liable for copyright infringement even though he or she did not directly engage in the infringing activity. In the United States, the Copyright Act does not itself impose liability for contributory infringement expressly. It is one of the two forms of secondary liability apart from vicarious liability. Contributory infringement is understood to be a form of infringement in which a person is not directly violating a copyright but induces or authorises another person to directly infringe the copyright.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 BMG Music v. Gonzalez, 430 F. 3d 888 (7th. Cir., 2005)
  2. ↑ BMG Music v. Gonzalez, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 910 (N.D.Ill., 2005).
  3. ↑ Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. , 464 U.S. 417 (1984). PD-icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from this U.S government document.
  4. ↑ MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. , 545 U.S. 913 (2005). PD-icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from judicial opinions or other documents created by the federal judiciary of the United States.
  5. ↑ Gonzalez v. BMG Music, 126 S. Ct. 2032 (2006).
  6. ↑ Escher, Jeffrey J. (2006). "Copyright, Technology & The Boston Strangler: The Seventh Circuit and the Future of Online Music Access". Seventh Circuit Review. 1 (1): 74–104 – via HeinOnline.
  7. ↑ Riley, Christopher (2007). "The Need for Software Innovation Policy". Journal on Telecommunications & High Technology Law. 5 (3): 589–628 – via HeinOnline.
  8. ↑ Conerton, Colin (2013). "Update needed: digital downloaders and the innocent infringer defense". Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts. 8 (5): 587–598 – via HeinOnline.
  9. ↑ Sanders, Chad A. (2010). "Maverick Recording Co. v. Whitney Harper: How the Fifth Circuit Virtually Eliminated Innocent Infringers without Noticing". Tulane Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property. 13: 295–302 – via HeinOnline.
  10. ↑ Bader, Christopher K. (2013). "Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing, Due Process, and the Judicial Role". Saint Louis University Law Journal. 57 (3): 805–838 – via HeinOnline.
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