receiving a direct financial benefit. Accordingly, the court ruled that there was no genuine issue
that CWIE had received a direct financial benefit from infringing activity, and therefore if on
remand the district court were to find that CWIE had met the threshold requirements of Section
512(i), CWIE would be entitled to the Section 512(c) safe harbor.^2522
i. Corbis Corp. v. Amazon.com, Inc.The opinion in this case contains a lengthy adjudication of the requirements of Section
512(i) as a predicate for the Section 512 safe harbors. Amazon hosted through its website a
platform called “zShops,” which allowed individuals and retailer vendors to showcase their
products and sell them directly to online consumers. A zShop vendor could include a product
image in its sales listing in one of two ways – either by creating a link to an image stored on the
vendor’s computer or server, or by uploading an image to one of Amazon’s servers for display in
the listing. Amazon did not actively participate or supervise the uploading or linking of images,
nor did it preview the images before the link was created or the upload completed.^2523
Corbis, the owner of the copyrights in a large collection of images, brought copyright
claims against Amazon because 230 of its images were displayed and sold without authorization
by zShop vendors through the Amazon website. In addition, two other images were displayed by
Amazon in banner ads that appeared on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), a website owned
by Amazon and operated separately from Amazon.com. Amazon asserted the safe harbor of
Section 512(c).^2524
The court turned first to a very detailed analysis of whether Amazon satisfied all the
predicate conditions of Section 512(i):
- Whether Amazon was a “Service Provider”. The court ruled that Amazon clearly
qualified under the definition of “Service Provider” of Section 512(k)(1)(B), and rejected Corbis’
argument that a Service Provider must “serve to route or connect online digital
communications.” Amazon’s operation of web sites was sufficient to make it a Service
Provider.^2525 - Whether Amazon Had Adopted an Adequate User Policy. Amazon required all zShop
vendors to execute a Participation Agreement, which prohibited vendors from listing or linking
to any item that infringed any third party intellectual property right or was counterfeited, illegal,
stolen, or fraudulent. The agreement also gave Amazon the right, but not the obligation, to
monitor any activity and content associated with the site, and the right and the absolute discretion
to remove, screen, or edit any content that violated the agreement or was otherwise
objectionable.^2526 In addition, it was Amazon’s policy that when it received information that a
(^2522) 481 F.3d at 767.
(^2523) Corbis Corp. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 351 F. Supp. 2d 1090, 1094 (W.D. Wa. 2004).
(^2524) Id. at 1096-98.
(^2525) Id. at 1100 & n. 6.
(^2526) Id. at 1095.