Case
Law Examples:
(a)
Marobie
FL v. National Association of Fire Equipment distributors
No. 96 C 2966 (N.D. Ill. Nov 13, 1997) National Assoc.
of Fire Equipment Distributors has a web page. Operator
of web page received off for Clip Art and sent some
blank disks and received images of firefighter related
art. Which he placed on the organization's web page.
The images were copyrighted property of the plaintiff.
Plaintiff sued after sales fell at Marobie's website.
The court found that even though the organization was
non-profit m and did not sell clip art its use could
still be considered a commercial one because it promoting
the organization and raised advertising revenue. Not
use d for traditional fair use uses.
(b)
Tasini
V New York Times 93 Civ 8678 (SS), SDNY Aug 13 1997.
A person may be liable for copyright infringement even
with no intent to infringe. A number of freelance writers
sued various electronic distributors claiming that,
when the authors sold the right to their articles the
rights conveyed did not include the "reuse" in electronic
databases. The Tasini case demonstrates and elementary
principle of copyright law: that the only rights a licensee
is entitled to are those acquired from the copyright
holder. The publishers had only the initial rights obtained.
However, publishing a compilation of works which is
comprised of elements of separate works may, under certain
circumstances, be allowed.
(c)
Playboy
Enterprises Inc. v. Webworld Inc. 968 F. Supp. 1171
(N.D. Texas 1997) ("Weworld case") Sexually explicit
pictures found on Usenet groups many form Playboy a
magazine Pictures were illegally scanned from Playboy's
magazines and distributed via Usenet News. Webworld
therefore acquired no rights from the copyright holder.
Religious
Technology Center v Netcom On-Line Communications Services
Inc., 907 F. Supp. 1361 (N.D. Cal 1995) ("Netcom case")
The court refused to hold an internet service provider
liable for the distributing of copyrighted material
over the Internet via Usenet News. The Court reasoned
that the provider did not engage in any volitional acts
but only set up a machine to provide access to Usenet
news with regard to the infringing material.
(d)
The
difference between the Webworld case and the Netcom
case would therefore seem to be that because Websold
archived the material it made the material part of its
website, whereas Netcom merely provided access to the
materials. Also, Netcom was in the business of providing
Internet connections whereas Webworld earned fees only
from its web site.
