A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · 2002 · Property

PropertyCopyrightPreliminary InjunctionsContributory InfringementVicarious Infringementcopyrightpeer-to-peerNapster

Facts

Plaintiffs sued Napster for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement arising from Napster's peer-to-peer music file sharing service. On remand from an earlier appeal, the district court entered a modified preliminary injunction requiring plaintiffs to identify protected works by artist, title, certification of ownership, and one or more corresponding file names appearing on Napster's index, after which Napster had to search continuously and block files containing those noticed works, including reasonable variations in names and spellings. The district court monitored compliance through reports, hearings, and a technical advisor. Although Napster blocked much infringing material, plaintiffs produced evidence that noticed works still were being infringed, and the district court ordered Napster to keep its file transferring service disabled until it could demonstrate reliable blocking of noticed copyrighted works.

Issue

Whether the modified preliminary injunction was legally proper and sufficiently specific in requiring plaintiffs to provide notice of copyrighted works and file names before Napster had a duty to block access, and whether the district court could use a technical advisor and order Napster to continue shutting down its file transferring service to enforce compliance. Also at issue was whether the district court could impose additional compliance measures, including use of a new filtering mechanism, while the injunction was pending on appeal.

Rule

Under the Ninth Circuit's prior Napster ruling as applied here, plaintiffs bear the burden to provide notice to Napster of copyrighted works and files containing those works available on the Napster system before Napster has the duty to disable access to the offending content. Once notice is given, Napster must affirmatively use its ability to patrol its system and preclude access to potentially infringing files listed on its search index, and to avoid vicarious infringement it must exercise its reserved right to police the system to its fullest extent. An injunction satisfies Rule 65(d) if it has a reasonably specific meaning, and a district court may use a technical advisor without delegating judicial power and may modify or supervise an injunction in light of new facts, including during appeal under Rule 62(c), so long as it does not finally adjudicate substantial rights directly involved in the appeal.

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Soundline Collective, a group of music publishers in Nashville, sues EchoPort, a file-indexing platform based in Seattle, for contributory and vicarious infringement. A preliminary injunction requires Soundline to send EchoPort the artist name, song title, ownership certification, and at least one filename appearing on EchoPort’s index for each work it seeks to protect; Soundline instead sends only a spreadsheet of copyrighted song titles and demands immediate blocking of every matching work on the system.

If EchoPort argues it has no injunction-based duty to block those works yet, how should the court rule?

Explanation. The majority held that plaintiffs bear the burden to provide notice of copyrighted works and files containing those works available on the system before the defendant’s duty to disable access arises. A bare list of titles, without corresponding files on the index as required by the injunction, is insufficient to trigger the full blocking duty. (Derived from A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. (n.d.).)