Monday, September 27, 2010

Hard Mode 9: The Inducement Theory aka I Wanna Be a Pirate


"Under the inducement theory inducement occurs where the defendant distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement."

So, you wanna watch Firefly but don't have the time to wait for every episode every week? You wanna play the Star Wars Imperial March for your report in Legal History, but have no idea where to find it?

What's your remedy? Become a pirate.

In the case of MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster (545 US 913), that's how the large film studio managed to extract damages from the software developer for copyright infringement of its movies.

The case was hailed as the latest, greatest step in the war against pirates. Way before, in the early 00's Napster era, suing pirates was easy, thanks in large part to the network architecture of Napster and its clones. Napster used a central server to store all its pirated stuff, so all the lawyers' work was easy, and thus went A&M Records v. Napster, Inc. (239 F.3d 1004).

The inducement theory has the following elements:
  1. Intent to bring about infringement,
  2. Distribution of a device suitable for infringing use, and
  3. Actual infringement by the recipients of the device.
But is the latest jurisprudence up-to-date when it comes to beating the reigning pirate king, BitTorrent?

1 comment:

adrian arugay said...

this image is from the game pirates of monkey island!!! nice.