that access to Pretty Faces and certain other videos had been disabled without prior notification
to him. An AEA representative responded to the plaintiff, explaining that when he sent the
takedown notice to YouTube, he believed that Pretty Faces was subject to an AEA contract. He
also explained that he had since done some research and discovered that Pretty Faces was not, in
fact, subject to an AEA contract and apologized for the confusion. By the time of this lawsuit, it
was uncontested that the plaintiff owned the Pretty Faces copyright and that the takedown notice
was sent to YouTube in error.^2940
The plaintiff filed a claim for copyright infringement, arguing that the defendant had
violated his exclusive rights to distribute and publicly display his video. Although the plaintiff
acknowledged that the defendant never copied his work, the plaintiff asserted that the defendant
interfered with the plaintiff’s rights to distribute and publicly display his work on YouTube by
preventing him from publicly displaying it. The court rejected this theory of copyright liability,
but suggested that a claim like the plaintiff’s claim could be appropriately raised under Section
512(f) (although the plaintiff had not done so). The court noted, however, that as a prerequisite
to liability under section 512(f), a defendant must have actual knowledge that it is making a
misrepresentation of fact. The plaintiff’s complaint had alleged no facts from which a court
could find it facially plausible that the defendant knew he was misrepresenting the facts when he
wrote to YouTube and stated that the Pretty Faces video was infringing. The court noted that in
pleading a claim for libel (not the copyright claim), the plaintiff stated that the defendant did not
perform the proper due diligence to back up its claim that the plaintiff was a copyright infringer
before sending a takedown notice to YouTube. The court noted, however, that negligence is not
the standard for liability under Section 512(f). The court further noted that in an email sent by a
representative of AEA two days after AEA sent its takedown notice to YouTube, the
representative stated that the clips from Pretty Face had been submitted to him by someone
claiming that the video had been filmed with AEA actors, he had taken in blind faith that the
person was correct but had now determined that this was in error, and apologized. The court
found that because this email, on which the plaintiff relied, stated on its face that the author did
not act with actual knowledge when he sent the takedown notice to YouTube, there could be no
liability under Section 512(f). Accordingly, the court granted the defendant’s motion to
dismiss.^2941
(xi) Design Furnishings v. Zen PathIn Design Furnishings, Inc. v. Zen Path LLC,^2942 the court ruled that notices to eBay that
sales of wicker furniture on the eBay website infringed the Zen Path’s copyrights violated
Section 512(f). Zen Path’s copyright registrations indicated a strong inference that it knew
subjectively it did not have a valid copyright infringement claim when it filed its notices of
infringement with eBay for two reasons. First, Zen Path’s applications for copyright registration
claimed its works were sculptures or three dimensional artwork or ornamental designs.
However, the pictures of the furniture submitted by Zen Path with the copyright registrations
(^2940) Id. at 1-2.
(^2941) Id. at 7-13.
(^2942) 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 112314 (E.D. Cal. Oct. 21, 2010).