operations or use digital fingerprinting technology to prevent copyright infringement by its
users.^2188
(t) UMG Recording v. Escape Media(For a discussion of vicarious liability issues in this case, see Section III.C.1(c) above.)(u) Gardner v. CafePress(For a discussion of vicarious liability issues in this case, see Section II.A.4(bb) above.)- Inducement Liability
(a) The Supreme Court’s Grokster DecisionFor a detailed discussion of the Supreme Court’s Grokster decision, which formally
introduced inducement liability into the copyright law for the first time, see Section III.C.2(c)(5)
above.
(b) Arista Records v. Usenet.comIn Arista Records LLC. V. Usenet.com, Inc.,^2189 the defendants operated a Napster-like
Usenet service that advertised to and targeted users who wanted to download music files. Unlike
peer-to-peer filing sharing networks, the files were stored on “spool” news servers operated by
the defendants. The defendants created designated servers for newsgroups containing music
binary files to increase their retention time over other types of Usenet files.^2190 The court,
although noting several courts that had expressed doubt as to whether inducement of
infringement states a separate claim for relief, or whether it is a species of contributory
infringement, granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment on their claim for inducement
of infringement as a separate theory.^2191
The court found the facts in the instant case very similar, and equally compelling, to
those that led the Supreme Court to find inducement liability in Grokster. Specifically, a
statistical survey based on random sampling concluded that over 94% of all content files offered
in the defendants’ music-related binary newsgroups were infringing or highly likely to be
infringing.^2192 The defendants openly and affirmatively sought to attract former users of other
notorious file-sharing services such as Napster and Kazaa, and boasted that as those file sharing
(^2188) “Hotfile To Pay $80M to MPAA, Studios In Copyright Suit,” Law360 (Dec. 3, 2013), available as of Dec. 7,
2013 at http://www.law360.com/ip/articles/493076?nl_pk=be5fde4e-8dc1-4d81-b621-
f0352bcdff74&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ip.
(^2189) 633 F. Supp. 2d 124 (S.D.N.Y. 2009).
(^2190) Id. at 130-31.
(^2191) Id. at 150 n.17 & 154.
(^2192) Id. at 151-52.