Getty continued to distribute Morel-credited images (as opposed to Suero-credited images) post-
kill notice.^2799
With respect to statutory damages for the DMCA violations, the defendants argued that
Morel could not recover for any DMCA violations because there was insufficient evidence for
the jury to conclude that he suffered an injury separate and apart from the injuries attributable to
the defendants’ copyright violations. The court rejected this argument, noting that the jury was
instructed that if it found that Morel was entitled to a verdict on both his copyright infringement
and his DMCA claims, it could not compensate him twice for any harem he might have suffered.
The court ruled that the jury must therefore be presumed to have determined that Morel suffered
additional harm beyond what he suffered as a result of the defendants’ copyright infringement.
The court also rejected the defendants’ argument that even if the jury was correctly instructed,
there was insufficient evidence supporting its finding that Morel suffered $20,000 in actual
damages. The court noted that statutory damages can be awarded even in the absence of
sufficient evidence supporting actual damages. In light of all the factors the jury was entitled to
consider, its statutory award of $20,000, or half the statutory minimum, was permissible.^2800
Finally, the court rejected the defendants’ challenges to the statutory damages award for
copyright infringement as intrinsically excessive. Under Second Circuit law, statutory damages
need not have a direct correlation with actual damages. And in any event, here there was
evidence from which the jury could have concluded that the defendants’ infringement (and
particularly AFP’s) was not just willful but reflected a gross disregard for the rights of copyright
holders. Accordingly, the court concluded that in the light of all the considerations the jury was
entitled to consider, remittitur of the $1.2 million statutory damages award was not required.^2801
The court therefore denied the defendants’ motions for JMOL, a new trial, and/or
remittitur, except as to Getty on Morel’s claim under Section 1202(b), which the court granted.
The court altered the jury’s award such that AFP and Getty continued to be jointly liable for
$1,210,000 and AFP was individually liable for the remaining $10,000.^2802
w. Columbia Pictures v. FungIn Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. v. Fung,^2803 the defendants operated BitTorrent sites
through which users could search indexes for dot-torrent files pointing to infringing movies and
other content. The district court found the defendants liable for inducement of infringement and
rejected assertion of a safe harbor under Section 512(c). The court found the Section 512(c)
inapplicable because the defendants’ sites were used to download dot-torrent files only, not
(^2799) Id. at 24-26.
(^2800) Id. at 28-31.
(^2801) Id. at 43-47.
(^2802) Id. at 47-48.
(^2803) 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 122661 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 21, 2009), aff’d, 710 F.3d 1020 (9th Cir. 2013).