Advanced Copyright Law on the Internet

Craigslist and the provision of a service that automated and circumvented the entry of
CAPTCHA passwords violated the ant-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. The court
awarded statutory damages of $400 for each of the 3,000 users of the defendant’s web site, on
the theory that each user received an “offer” to circumvent in the form of an offer to purchase the
defendant’s software or CAPTCHA credits, for a total award of $1,200,000. The court rejected
the plaintiff’s request for the statutory maximum of $2,500 per offer, finding that such an award
would be vastly disproportional to the actual costs the plaintiff alleged it had incurred as a result
of auto-posting, $5,000 per year.^947

d. Craigslist v. Branley

In this case, the court denied Craigslist’s request for a default permanent injunction
against a defendant who failed to appear because Craigslist had not alleged facts sufficient to
support the allegation that the defendant would continue to act as an agent posting ads for third
parties by circumventing Craigslist’s CAPTCHA system using software known as “CLAD
Genius,” in violation of Section 1201 and Craigslist’s Terms of Use.^948

e. Craigslist v. Kerbel

In this case, the court granted the plaintiff’s motion for a default judgment, finding that
the plaintiff had adequately pled claims for violation of the anti-circumvention provisions based
on the defendants’ alleged bypassing of Craiglist’s CAPTCHA software and its phone
verification measures in order to automatically create accounts and post ads to Craigslist. The
court awarded statutory damages of $200,000, calculated on the defendants’ offer to sell a bundle
of 10,000 “credits” used to purchase phone-verified accounts on Craigslist at 10 credits each,
representing 1,000 offers to sell the accounts, multiplied by the minimum statutory damages
award of $200 per violation.^949

(xvi) Echostar v. Viewtech

In Echostar Satellite LLC v. Viewtech, Inc.,^950 the court granted the plaintiff summary
judgment on its claim under Section 1201(a)(2) against the defendants for the distribution of
receivers structurally altered so as to be capable of unauthorized decryption of Echostar satellite
TV programming and of software that would enable the piracy of Echostar’s programming. The
court also found that the defendants’ provision of free receiver to moderators on popular piracy
web sites and encouragement of the moderators to provide favorable reviews of the receiver’s
ability to obtain the plaintiff’s protected programming violated the third prong of Section

(^946) 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 143037 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 15, 2010).
(^947) Id. at 4, 10-13.
(^948) Craigslist, Inc. v. Branley, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36731 at 4-5, 12 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 19, 2012).
(^949) Craigslist, Inc. v. Kerbel, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 108573 at *26-27, 49- 50 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 2, 2012).
(^950) 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42709 (S.D. Cal. Apr. 20, 2011).