Advanced Copyright Law on the Internet

(iii) Stockwire Research Group v. Lebed

In this case, the court entered a default judgment against the defendants, who were
accused of violating Section 1201 by removing technical protection measures from the plaintiffs’
documentary presentation, converting it to a Windows media video and posting it on the web
without the plaintiffs’ permission, and of violating Section 1202 by removing CMI from the
video in the form of the copyright notice, the title of the work, the information identifying one of
the plaintiffs as the copyright holder, and the name of the other plaintiff who was credited in the
work.^1407 The plaintiffs sought statutory damages. Following the McClatchey decision, the
court ruled that, for purposes of statutory damages for removal of CMI, “each violation” means
each time the product with CMI removed was posted for distribution by the defendant (here,
three times), regardless of the number of end recipients.^1408 However, for purposes statutory
damages for violation of the anti-circumvention prohibitions, “per act of circumvention” means
each instance in which an end user gained access to the copyrighted material through unlawful
circumvention – here, 11,786 unauthorized viewings, for which the court awarded statutory
damages of $200 per viewing, for a total award of $2,357,200.^1409 Thus, CMI statutory damages
focus on the acts of the defendant, whereas anti-circumvention statutory damages focus on the
acts of the recipients.

(iv) MDY Industries, LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

The facts of this case and the court’s various rulings on liability are set forth in Section
II.G.1(a)(2) above. Blizzard requested that it should be entitled to a minimum statutory damages
award of $24 million based upon MDY’s sales of at least 120,000 Glider licenses (120,000 x
$200). The district court, however, awarded statutory damages of $6.5 million, the amount of
the damage award in the stipulated judgment between the parties. The court refused to make a
reduction of damages on the basis of innocent infringement because MDY had designed its
Glider software specifically to bypass the plaintiff’s Warden software.^1410 On appeal, the Ninth
Circuit reversed the district court on all rulings except as to MDY’s liability for violation of
Section 1201(a)(2) of the DMCA and remanded for trial on Blizzard’s claim for tortuous
interference with contract.^1411

(v) Nexon America v. Kumar

The plaintiff was the owner of a massively multiplayer online game called “MapleStory.”
The defendants operated a network of servers, websites and related products and services called
“UMaple” that enabled users to copy, access, and play MapleStory. To play MapleStory on the

(^1407) Stockwire Research Group, Inc. v. Lebed, 577 F. Supp. 2d 1262, 1265 (S.D. Fla. 2008).
(^1408) Id. at 1267.
(^1409) Id. at 1268.
(^1410) MDY Industries, LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38260 at 4-6 (D. Ariz. Apr. 1,
2009).
(^1411) MDY Industries, LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 3428 at 2-3 (9th Cir. Feb. 17,
2011).