Friedman v. Live Nation Merchandise, No. 14-55302 (9th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff suit against Live Nation asserting claims for copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq., and removal of copyright management information (CMI) under 17 U.S.C. 1202. Live Nation stipulated in the district court that it infringed plaintiff's copyrights when it used his photos of Run-DMC without his authorization on t-shirts and a calendar. The district court granted summary judgment for Live Nation on plaintiff's claims. The court concluded that, drawing all inferences in plaintiff’s favor, the evidence in the record gave rise to a triable issue of fact as to Live Nation’s willfulness. Therefore, the court reversed the grant of summary judgment as to this issue. The court also reversed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's claim under section 1202(b) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 1202(b). In this case, the court concluded that the record creates a triable issue of fact as to whether Live Nation distributed plaintiff's photographs with the requisite knowledge. How Live Nation came to possess plaintiff's photographs - and thus whether it had knowledge that the CMI had been removed - is a fact “particularly within” Live Nation’s knowledge. It would be unfair to burden plaintiff at the summary judgment stage with proving that knowledge with greater specificity than he did. Finally, the court held that the provision, in Section 504(c)(1) of the Copyright Act, of separate statutory damage awards for the infringement of each work “for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally” applies only to parties who have been determined jointly and severally liable in the course of the liability determinations in the case for the infringements adjudicated in the action. Because plaintiff did not join any of his alleged downstream infringers as defendants in this case, the district court correctly held that he was limited to one award per work infringed by Live Nation.
Court Description: Copyright. In a case arising out of a copyright dispute over Live Nation’s unauthorized use, on t-shirts and a calendar, of photographs Glen Friedman took of the hip hop group Run- DMC, the panel (a) reversed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of Live Nation Merchandise, Inc., on claims that Live Nation willfully infringed Friedman’s copyrights and knowingly removed copyright management information from the images it used, and (b) affirmed the district court’s ruling on statutory damages. Live Nation stipulated that it infringed Friedman’s copyrights. The panel held that the evidence in the record gave rise to a triable issue of fact as to whether Live Nation’s infringement was willful, which would make it liable for additional damages under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(2), and that the district court therefore erred in granting summary judgment to Live Nation on willfulness. The panel held that the district court also erred in granting summary judgment on Friedman’s claim under section 1202(b) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act regarding removal of copyright management information. The panel explained that Friedman could prevail upon a showing that Live Nation distributed his works with knowledge that copyright management information had been removed, even if Live Nation did not remove it. The panel concluded that FRIEDMAN V. LIVE NATION MERCHANDISE 3 evidence in the record creates a triable issue of fact as to whether Live Nation distributed Friedman’s photographs with the requisite knowledge. Affirming the district court’s ruling on statutory damages, the panel held that Copyright Act Section 504(c)(1)’s provision of separate statutory damage awards for the infringement of each work “for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally” applies only to parties who have been determined jointly and severally liable in the course of the liability determinations in the case for the infringements adjudicated in the action, and that a plaintiff seeking separate damages awards on the basis of downstream infringement must join the alleged downstream infringers in the action and prove their liability for infringement. The panel concluded that because Friedman did not join any of his alleged downstream infringers as defendants in this case, the district court correctly held that he was limited to one award per work infringed by Live Nation.
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