Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests of copyright holders with the public interest in the wider distribution and use of creative works by allowing as a defense to copyright infringement claims certain limited uses that might otherwise be considered infringement. Unlike "fair dealing" rights that exist in most countries that were part of the British Empire in the 20th century, the fair use right is a general exception that applies to all different kinds of uses with all types of works and turns on a flexible proportionality test that examines the purpose of the use, the amount used, and the impact on the market of the original work.
Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc., 153 F.3d 82, was a copyright case about the Russian language weekly Russian Kurier in New York City that had copied and published various materials from Russian newspapers and news agency reports of Itar-TASS. The case was ultimately decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The decision was widely commented upon and the case is considered a landmark case because the court defined rules applicable in the U.S. on the extent to which the copyright laws of the country of origin or those of the U.S. apply in international disputes over copyright. The court held that to determine whether a claimant actually held the copyright on a work, the laws of the country of origin usually applied, but that to decide whether a copyright infringement had occurred and for possible remedies, the laws of the country where the infringement was claimed applied.
Copyright misuse is an equitable defence to copyright infringement in the United States based upon the doctrine of unclean hands. The misuse doctrine provides that the copyright holder engaged in abusive or improper conduct in exploiting or enforcing the copyright will be precluded from enforcing his rights against the infringer. Copyright misuse is often comparable to and draws from the older and more established doctrine of patent misuse, which bars a patentee from obtaining relief for infringement when he extends his patent rights beyond the limited monopoly conferred by the law.
Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court case that discussed whether copies of copyrighted works could be regarded as stolen property for the purposes of a law which criminalized the interstate transportation of property that had been "stolen, converted or taken by fraud" and holding that they could not be so regarded under that law.
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.
Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court decision in which public interest in learning about a historical figure's impressions of a historic event was held not to be sufficient to show fair use of material otherwise protected by copyright. Defendant, The Nation, had summarized and quoted substantially from A Time to Heal, President Gerald Ford's forthcoming memoir of his decision to pardon former president Richard Nixon. When Harper & Row, who held the rights to A Time to Heal, brought suit, The Nation asserted that its use of the book was protected under the doctrine of fair use, because of the great public interest in a historical figure's account of a historic incident. The Court rejected this argument holding that the right of first publication was important enough to find in favor of Harper.
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 the 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.
In re Aimster Copyright Litigation, 334 F.3d 643, was a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit addressed copyright infringement claims brought against Aimster, concluding that a preliminary injunction against the file-sharing service was appropriate because the copyright owners were likely to prevail on their claims of contributory infringement, and that the services could have non-infringing users was insufficient reason to reverse the district court's decision. The appellate court also noted that the defendant could have limited the quantity of the infringements if it had eliminated an encryption system feature, and if it had monitored the use of its systems. This made it so that the defense did not fall within the safe harbor of 17 U.S.C. § 512(i). and could not be used as an excuse to not know about the infringement. In addition, the court decided that the harm done to the plaintiff was irreparable and outweighed any harm to the defendant created by the injunction.
Feltner v. Columbia Pictures Television, Inc., 523 U.S. 340 (1998), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that if there is to be an award of statutory damages in a copyright infringement case, then the opposing party has the right to demand a jury trial.
BMG Music v. Gonzalez, 430 F.3d 888, 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. 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".
Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U.S. 517 (1994), was a United States Supreme Court case that addressed the standards governing awards of attorneys' fees in copyright cases. The Copyright Act of 1976 authorizes, but does not require, the court to award attorneys' fees to "the prevailing party" in a copyright action. In Fogerty, the Court held that such attorneys'-fees awards are discretionary, and that the same standards should be applied in the case of a prevailing plaintiff and a prevailing defendant.
Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States establishing that information alone without a minimum of original creativity cannot be protected by copyright. In the case appealed, Feist had copied information from Rural's telephone listings to include in its own, after Rural had refused to license the information. Rural sued for copyright infringement. The Court ruled that information contained in Rural's phone directory was not copyrightable and that therefore no infringement existed.
MDY Industries, LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc and Vivendi Games, Inc., 629 F.3d 928, is a case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. At the district court level, MDY had been found liable under theories of copyright and tort law for selling software that contributed to the breach of Blizzard's End User License Agreement (EULA) and Terms of Use (ToU) governing the World of Warcraft video game software.
The court's ruling was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which reversed the district court in part, upheld in part, and remanded for further proceedings. The Court of Appeals ruled that for a software licensee's violation of a contract to constitute copyright infringement, there must be a nexus between the license condition and the licensor’s exclusive rights of copyright. However, the court also ruled, contrary to Chamberlain v. Skylink, that a finding of circumvention under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act does not require a nexus between circumvention and actual copyright infringement.
Omega S. A. v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 541 F.3d 982, was a case decided by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that held that in copyright law, the first-sale doctrine does not act as a defense to claims of infringing distribution and importation for unauthorized sale of authentic, imported watches that bore a design registered in the Copyright Office. It is contrasted with Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 559 U.S. 154 (2010), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving copyright law. The Court held that failure to register a copyright under Section 411 (a) of the United States Copyright Act does not limit a Federal Court's jurisdiction over claims of infringement regarding unregistered works.
The Copyright Remedy Clarification Act (CRCA) is a United States copyright law that attempted to abrogate sovereign immunity of states for copyright infringement. The CRCA amended 17 USC 511(a):
In general. Any State, any instrumentality of a State, and any officer or employee of a State or instrumentality of a State acting in his or her official capacity, shall not be immune, under the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution of the United States or under any other doctrine of sovereign immunity, from suit in Federal Court by any person, including any governmental or nongovernmental entity, for a violation of any of the exclusive rights of a copyright owner provided by sections 106 through 122, for importing copies of phonorecords in violation of section 602, or for any other violation under this title.
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.
Bolles v. Outing Co., 175 U.S. 262 (1899), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held under the Revised Statutes of the United States, someone seeking damages for copyright infringement is only eligible for damages from illicit copies found in the accused's possession. Copies already distributed are out of scope.
Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, 586 U.S. ___ (2019), is a Supreme Court of the United States case in which the Court unanimously ruled that a copyright infringement suit must wait until the copyright is successfully registered by the United States Copyright Office.
Webster v. Daly, 163 U.S. 155 (1896), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction over cases appealed from the circuit courts. The case was dismissed.
