Advanced Copyright Law on the Internet

The plaintiffs sought statutory damages for Gonzalez’ unauthorized copying, seeking the
minimum amount of $750 per work infringed. Gonzalez sought to reduce the award below the
$750 minimum by arguing under Section 504(c)(2) that she was not aware and had no reason to
believe that her acts constituted infringement of copyright. The district court rejected the request
under the provisions of Section 402(d), which provides that if a valid notice of copyright appears
on the phonorecords to which a defendant had access, then no weight shall be given to the
defendant’s interposition of a defense based on innocent infringement in mitigation of actual or
statutory damages.^298 Gonzalez sought to avoid Section 402(d) by arguing that there were no
copyright notices on the data she downloaded. The court rejected this argument: “She
downloaded data rather than discs, and the data lacked copyright notices, but the statutory
question is whether ‘access’ to legitimate works was available rather than whether infringers
earlier in the chain attached copyright notices to the pirated works. Gonzalez readily could have
learned, had she inquired, that the music was under copyright.”^299

(b) Columbia Pictures v. Bunnell

In Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. v. Bunnell,^300 the court entered judgment against
defendant Valence Media LLC, operator of the web site at http://www.torrentspy.com, for willful
inducement of copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, and vicarious
copyright infringement. The court awarded the plaintiffs statutory damages of $30,000 per
infringement for each of 3,699 infringements shown, for a total judgment of $110,970,000. The
court also issued a permanent injunction enjoining the defendants from encouraging, inducing, or
knowingly contributing to the reproduction, download, distribution, upload, or public
performance or display of any copyrighted work at issue, and from making available for
reproduction, download, distribution, upload, or public performance or display any such work.^301

(c) Sony BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum

In Sony BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum,^302 the court rejected a broadside fair
use defense for the file-sharing by a college sophomore, Joel Tenenbaum, of 30 copyrighted
songs belonging to the plaintiffs. Describing the defense raised by the defendant’s counsel as
“truly chaotic,”^303 the court noted that it represented a version of fair use so broad that it would

(^298) Id. at 891-92.
(^299) Id. at 892. Gonzalez also challenged the district court’s award of the $750 amount on summary judgment,
arguing that the choice of amount is a question for the jury. The Seventh Circuit noted that, although a suit for
statutory damages under Section 504(c) is a suit at law to which the seventh amendment applies, this does not
mean that a jury must resolve every dispute. When there are no disputes of material fact, a court may enter
summary judgment without transgressing the Constitution. The court noted that Gonzalez had argued for the
minimum amount of $750 per song and the plaintiffs had been content with that amount, which the district court
then awarded on summary judgment. Id.
(^300) 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63227 (C.D. Cal. July 10, 2008).
(^301) Id. at *1-3.
(^302) 672 F. Supp. 2d 217 (D. Mass. 2009), rev’d, 660 F.3d 487 (1st Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 2431 (2012).
(^303) Id. at 220.