JOLT Digest

By Andrew Crocker

Supreme Court to Hear “Major Test of Copyright Power”

SCOTUSblog reports that the Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Golan v. Holder to consider a challenge to the federal law that restored U.S. copyrights to certain foreign works that had previously been in the public domain. The petitioners are “orchestra conductors, educators, performers, film archivists, and motion picture distributors” who claim to have relied upon the formerly public domain works. The petitioners have twice appealed to, and been denied by, the United States Circuit Court for the Tenth Circuit. In its next term, the Supreme Court will rule on both arguments rejected by the Tenth Circuit — that the law violates both the First Amendment and the Copyright Clause of the Constitution. According to Publisher’s Weekly, the works restored to copyright include “symphonies by Shostakovich and Stravinsky, books by Virginia Woolf, artwork by Picasso, and films by Fellini and Hitchcock.”

JOLT Digest has previously reported on filing of the writ of petition for certiorari, the Tenth Circuit’s original ruling in Golan, the district court’s subsequent decision, and the Tenth Circuit’s most recent decision.

Sony Subpoenas IP Records of Visitors to PS3 Jailbreak Site

Wired reports that a magistrate judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California has granted Sony’s subpoena request to require a website host to turn over IP addresses of visitors to a New Jersey hacker’s site. George Hotz, the site owner, posted encryption keys and other software that allow owners of Sony’s Playstation 3 (“PS3”) to “jailbreak” the console. Sony argues that Hotz violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibition on distributing tools that allow circumvention of technological copy protections, since jailbreaking the PS3 allows owners to run pirated games. The court also granted Sony the right to subpoena related information from Hotz’s accounts on Twitter, YouTube and Blogger.

Lime Wire Settles Suit with Music Publishers

Bloomberg reports that a group of music publishers, including EMI and Warner Brothers, has settled their lawsuit against Lime Wire LLC, creator of the now defunct file-sharing service LimeWire. The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed. Last year, in a suit brought by the Recording Industry Association of America (“RIAA”), Lime Wire was found liable for copyright infringement and forced to shut down. According to CNET, the music publishers filed suit after the RIAA ruling — as did a separate group of record labels, whose suit is still pending. The Hollywood Reporter notes that in the pending suit, Lime Wire has been attempting to use discovery “to show that [labels’] claims of revenue losses are exaggerated.”

Techcrunch Using Facebook “Real Name” Commenting System

Techcrunch announced recently that it is the latest in a series of major sites to use a Facebook-based plugin for user comments on the site’s posts. Because the plugin requires a Facebook account to post, users’ comments will now be associated with their real names, and the comments will be added to their Facebook feed by default. Although Techcrunch says it is responding to “trolls and spammers,” PC Mag wonders if the lack of anonymity will have chilling effects on online debate. Additionally, on the Huffington Post Larry Magid points out that the move further isolates users who choose not to register for Facebook accounts.

Tenth Circuit Rejects First Amendment Challenge to U.S. Copyright Law
By Abby Lauer – Edited by Gary Pong

Golan v. Holder, Nos. 09-1234 & 09-1261 (10th Cir., June 21, 2010)
Slip Opinion

Section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), codified in 17 U.S.C. § 104A, restored the U.S. copyrights of foreign authors who had lost copyright protection for failing to comply with certain formalities required by U.S. law.  Plaintiffs challenged Section 514 as a violation of the First Amendment.  The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado upheld plaintiff’s First Amendment challenge by granting their motion for summary judgment. Because the works of these foreign authors had become part of the public domain, the district court reasoned that the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting public use of the works by reinstating copyright protection.

Reversing the lower court, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the URAA does not violate the right to freedom of expression that is protected by the First Amendment. In so holding, the court reasoned that Section 514 of the URAA was narrowly tailored to advance the government’s interest in protecting American copyright holders’ interests abroad. The court deferred to Congress because the legislative body is better equipped to amass data and make important decisions about U.S. copyright law. In addition, the court recognized that the foreign policy implications of the URAA warranted special deference.

For a complete description of the district court’s decision that was handed down in April 2009, see JOLT Digest. Techdirt provides criticism of the recent Tenth Circuit decision. (more…)

Tenth Circuit Affirms Liability for Seller of Private Telephone Records

By Tyler Lacey – Edited by Anthony Kammer
Federal Trade Commission v. Accusearch Inc., June 29, 2009, No. 08-8003
Slip Opinion

On June 29, 2009, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the Wyoming District Court, holding that Accursearch’s sale of private telephone records on its Abika.com website constituted an unfair practice in violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA) and granted summary judgment for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Dan Gooden of The Register provides an overview of the opinion. Eric Goldman criticizes the court’s opinion on his Technology & Marketing Law blog. Although Goldman doubts that “the literal holding of this case is all that troubling to most folks” he believes that the court “muddles the discussion” of each of the CDA immunity prongs.  In particular, Goldman believes that the court erred when it decided that “develop” was essentially synonymous with “publish” for the purposes of analyzing CDA immunity. Goldman describes the opinion as a “major carveback of [the CDA]‘s coverage” and predicts problems for online retailers that republish third-party content. (more…)

District Court Upholds First Amendment Challenge to the URAA
By Caitlyn Ross – Edited by Stephanie Weiner

Golan v. Holder
D. of Colorado, April 3, 2009, No. 01-cv-01854-LTB
Memorandum Opinion (hosted by the Stanford Fair Use Project)

On April 3rd, the United States District Court for the District of Colorado granted plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment, upholding the First Amendment challenge to Section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), codified in 17 U.S.C. §104A. The case was on remand from Golan v. Gonzales (10th Cir.), which instructed the District Court to evaluate the First Amendment implications of restoration.  Judge Lewis T. Babcock held that §104A, which restored copyright in certain foreign works that had previously fallen into the public domain, cannot survive First Amendment scrutiny.

The URAA restored the US copyrights of foreign authors whose works entered the public domain for any reason other than the expiration of a copyright term in the work’s country of origin. The Tenth Circuit determined that the law “altered the traditional contours of copyright protection” by restoring copyrights in works of foreign origin that were previously in the public domain in the United States and therefore the law was subject to First Amendment scrutiny. The court held that once the works entered the public domain, the plaintiffs acquired a vested interest in the speech. On remand, the District Court – which had previously upheld § 104A – held that this provision of the URAA violates the First Amendment insofar as it suppresses parties’ rights to continue using works they had exploited when those works were in the public domain.

According to Anthony Falzone of the Stanford Fair Use Project, which is litigating the dispute, this is “the first time a court has held any part of the Copyright Act violates the First Amendment.” The Technology & Marketing Law Blog provides an overview of the case. (more…)

Stronger 1st Amendment Review of Expansions in Copyright Protection?

By Nick Bramble

On September 5, the 10th Circuit handed down its opinion in Golan v. Gonzales, No. 05-1259 (10th Cir. Sept. 4, 2007). The court held that the implementation of the Berne Convention on Copyrights (the Uruguay Round Agreements Act § 514) may violate the 1st Amendment by removing some materials–books, films, and songs, mostly–from the public domain and placing them under copyright protection. Generally, the court’s ruling would expand the scope of 1st Amendment review when Congress acts to change copyright law. The court reasoned that if Congress alters the “traditional contours of copyright protection,” then its actions should be subject to strict or intermediate scrutiny. See Slip Op. 05-1259 at 16. The 10th Circuit concluded that URAA § 514 did alter these “traditional contours” by deviating from the “bedrock principle of copyright law that works in the public domain remain in the public domain.” Id. at 16-17. It remanded to the district court to determine whether § 514 was a content-based or content-neutral restriction on speech and to apply the necessary 1st Amendment review.

From the free culture side of the copyright debate, Jack Balkin celebrates the ruling but cautions that its overreliance on Eldred v. Ashcroft‘s “traditional contours of copyright law” test might justify expansions of copyright law if it can be shown that new copyright laws “create differences only in degree rather than kind” and “are part of a gradual historical progression of increased copyright protection.” Larry Lessig weighs in on Golan’s relevance to his petition to the Supreme Court to grant review of Kahle v. Gonzales, a recent 9th Circuit ruling that looked less favorably on a similar constitutional challenge to copyright law. William Patry is far less enthusiastic, calling the ruling “the first vindication of an approach argued by Larry Lessig and colleagues that I had thought made no sense at all.”