for an agent, and does not excuse a failure to provide the Copyright Office with any information
at all.^2995
(iv) Oppenheimer v. AllvoicesIn this case, the plaintiff brought claims for copyright infringement for unlicensed use of
his photographs on the defendant Allvoices’ web site. Allvoices was an online service provider
that operated a web site set up as a community for its users to share and discuss news, by
contributing related text, video and images, and commenting. Citizen journalists who posted
news, videos, images and commentary were paid consideration for their article contributions
based on the popularity of, and web traffic to, their articles. Allvoices filed a motion to dismiss
in part based on the Section 512(c) safe harbor. Several of the plaintiffs’ photographs were
posted to the web site around January 7, 2011, but Allvoices did not designate a DMCA-related
copyright agent with the Copyright Office until March 15, 2011. The court ruled that Allvoices
could not invoke the safe harbor of Section 512(c)(1) with respect to infringing conduct that
occurred before it designated a DMCA-related agent with the Copyright Office. However, the
court noted that it remained unresolved whether Allvoices’ potential liability in the case was
limited to the time between when the plaintiff’s works were posted and March 15, 2011. The
parties had not presented this issue to the court and so the court refused to address it.^2996
(8) Whether the Safe Harbors Apply to Pre-1972 Sound
Recordings
Two federal court decisions have concluded that the DMCA safe harbors apply to claims
of infringement against service providers with respect to sound recordings fixed prior to
February 15, 1972, the date on which sound recordings first became eligible for federal copyright
protection. The first was Capitol Records, Inc. v. MP3Tunes, LLC,^2997 for the reasons discussed
in Section III.C.6(b)(1)(iii).t above. The second was UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Escape Media
Group, Inc.,^2998 largely on the grounds of the persuasiveness of the reasoning of the MP3Tunes
decision.^2999
However, two other court decisions have reached the opposite conclusion. A New York
state court in the case of UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Escape Media Group, Inc.^3000 concluded that
the DMCA safe harbors don’t apply to works protected under state copyright laws:
Initially, it is clear to us that the DMCA, if interpreted in the manner favored by
defendant, would directly violate section 301(c) of the Copyright Act. Had the(^2995) Id. at 19-21.
(^2996) Oppenheimer v. Allvoices, Inc., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 80320 at 1-2, 15-18 (N.D. Cal. June 10, 2014).
(^2997) 821 F. Supp. 2d 627 (S.D.N.Y. 2011).
(^2998) 2012 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 3214 (S.Ct. N.Y. July 10, 2012).
(^2999) Id. at *3-12.
(^3000) 2013 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 2642 (Apr. 23, 2013).