compliant, Amazon asserted that it promptly canceled a listing after receiving a notice of
infringement, an assertion that Corbis did not challenge.^2546
In any event, in a more significant ruling, the court held that third party notices do not, in
themselves, constitute red flags. As noted in the legislative history, evidence of blatant copyright
infringement will often derive from information on the offending site itself. The court noted that
even if the notices had caused Amazon to examine the content of the zShops sites, Corbis had
not shown that those sites contained the type of blatant infringing activity that would have raised
a red flag for Amazon. Accordingly, Corbis had failed to establish apparent knowledge of
infringement on the part of Amazon.^2547
- Whether Amazon Had the Right and Ability to Control the Infringing Activity. Corbis
argued a right and ability to control on Amazon’s part from the fact that it had terminated the
zShops defendants on the same day Corbis filed and served its complaint. The court cited the
CCBill and Costar cases for the proposition that the right and ability to control prong cannot be
satisfied merely by the ability of a service provider to remove or block access to materials posted
on its website or stored on its systems. Nor did the fact that Amazon advertised the zShops
platform amount to a right and ability to control the items sold there absent some showing that
Amazon intended to pick infringing material for its site. The court noted that Amazon did not
preview the products prior to their listing, did not edit the product descriptions, and did not
suggest prices or otherwise involve itself in the sale. Accordingly, the court ruled that Amazon
did not have the right and ability to control the infringing material, and the court therefore did
not need to look into whether Amazon received a direct financial benefit from the allegedly
infringing conduct.^2548
Based on its various rulings, the court concluded that Amazon was entitled to the Section
512(c) safe harbor and was therefore immune from all monetary relief. The only relief Corbis
could be entitled to was the limited injunctive relief set forth in Section 512(j). Because Corbis
had not sought injunctive relief, and because Amazon had asserted that it had terminated the
accounts of the defendant vendors, it was unclear how the limited injunctive relief would apply
in the particular case at bar. The court therefore granted Amazon’s motion for summary
judgment with respect to the DMCA claims.^2549
j. Tur v. YouTube, Inc.In Tur v. YouTube, Inc.,^2550 Robert Tur, owner of the copyright in video footage of the
Reginald Denny beatings during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, sued YouTube for copyright
infringement based on the unauthorized presence of his copyrighted video footage on the web
(^2546) Corbis, 351 F. Supp. 2d at 1108.
(^2547) Id. at 1108-09.
(^2548) Id. at 1109-10.
(^2549) Id. at 1110-11 & 1118-19.
(^2550) 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50254 (C.D. Cal. June 20, 2007).