Summary judgement from the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division judging in favor of Amazon.com Inc. (“Defendant”) at trial.
Hendrickson (“Plaintiff”) notified Amazon.com (“Defendant”) that all digital video disc copies of his movie, Manson, infringed on his copyright of the movie. Later on, Hendrickson then saw a DVD copy of Manson on Amazon being sold by a third party seller that was recently posted. He bought the copy of the DVD and received an automatic email confirming his purchase. Hendrickson believes that Amazon committed copyright infringement because it sold the DVD. Plaintiff asserts direct copyright infringement against Amazon and the third party seller and vicarious copyright infringement
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A plaintiff must provide evidence that the defendant was a direct seller of the infringing item. In a summary judgement the defendant must prove that there is no evidence in the claim that they are a direct seller.
2. An ISP under the DMCA is entitled to the safe harbor affirmative defense against a claim of vicarious copyright infringement if it establishes that it does not know that the material on the system/network is infringing, they do not receive a financial benefit from infringing activity, and when notified of the infringement they remove or disable access to the material.
Application of Law:
1. The plaintiff should provide evidence that the company was a direct seller of the DVD. The evidence of “sales” documents and an automated email are not sufficient evidence to prove that Amazon is a direct seller of the DVD. The documents presented were website pages used by the seller and buyer during the purchase. The email was automated and was a notification to the buyer of the purchase. These acts make Amazon an internet service provider as they provided online services to the buyer and seller. The third party as an individual was the one to commit direct copyright infringement. Therefore, there is no evidence that Amazon is a direct seller and committed direct copyright