Opinion ID: 8414979
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: LiveJournal 1

Text: LiveJournal is a social media platform. Among other services, it allows users to create and run thematic “communities” in which they post and comment on content related to the theme. LiveJournal communities can create their own rules for submitting and commenting on posts. LiveJournal set up three types of unpaid administrator roles to run its communities. “Moderators” review posts submitted by users to ensure compliance with the rules. 2 “Maintainers” review and delete posts and have the authority to remove moderators and users from the community. Each community also has one “owner” who has the authority of a maintainer, but can also remove maintainers. LiveJournal protects against copyright infringement in its communities through various mechanisms. LiveJournal follows the formal notice and takedown procedures outlined in the DMCA by designating an agent and form to report infringement, and by promptly removing infringing posts and prohibiting repeat abusers from the community. 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(1)(C). LiveJournal’s Terms of Service instructs users not to “[u]pload, post or otherwise transmit any Content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret,' copyright or other proprietary rights.” Oh No They Didn’t! (“ONTD”) ONTD is a popular LiveJournal community which features up-to-date celebrity news. Users submit posts containing photographs, videos, links, and gossip about celebrities’ lives. ONTD moderators review and publicly post some of the submissions. Other users engage in conversations about the celebrity news in the comments section of each post. For example, one of the ONTD posts at issue contained photographs that Mavrix had taken which appeared to show that super-celebrity Bey-oncé was pregnant. Users speculated in the comments section of that post that Beyoncé was indeed pregnant. 3 Like other LiveJournal communities, ONTD created rules for submitting and commenting on posts. ONTD’s rules pertain to both potential copyright infringement and substantive guidance for users. For example, one rule, instructs users to “[i]nclude the article and picture(s) in your post, do not simply refer us off to another site for the goods.” Another rule provides “Keep 'it recent. We don’t need a post in 2010 about Britney Spears shaving her head.” ONTD’s rules also include a list of sources from which users should not copy material. The sources on the list have informally requested that ONTD stop posting infringing material. ONTD has also automatically blocked all material from one source that sent ONTD a cease and desist letter. ONTD has nine moderators, six maintainers, and one owner. ONTD users submit proposed posts containing celebrity news to an internal queue. Moderators review the submissions and publicly post approximately one-third of them. Moderators review for substance, approving only those submissions relevant to new and exciting celebrity news. Moderators also review for copyright infringement, pornography, and harassment. When ONTD was created, like other LiveJournal communities, it was operated exclusively by volunteer moderators. Li-veJournal was not involved in the day-today operation of the site. ONTD, however, grew in popularity to 52 million page views per month in 2010 and attracted LiveJour-nal’s attention. By a significant margin, ONTD is LiveJournal’s most popular com-ihunity and is the only community with a “household name.” In 2010, LiveJournal sought to exercise more control over ONTD so that it could generate advertising revenue from the popular community. LiveJournal hired a then active moderator, Brendan Delzer, to serve as the community’s full time “primary leader.” By hiring Delzer, LiveJournal intended to “take over” ONTD, grow the site, and run ads on it. 4 As the “primary leader,” Delzer instructs ONTD moderators on the content they should approve and selects and removes moderators on the basis of their performance. Delzer also continues to perform moderator work, reviewing and approving posts alongside the other moderators whom he oversees. While Delzer is paid and expected to work full timé, the other moderators are “free to leave and go and volunteer’ their time- in any way they see fit.” In his deposition, Mark Ferrell, the General Manager of LiveJournal’s U.S. office, explained that Delzer “acts in some capacities as a sort of head maintainer” and serves in an “elevated status” to the other modferators. Delzer, on the other hand, testified at his deposition that he does not serve as head moderator and that ONTD has no “primary leader.” Mavrix Mavrix is a celebrity photography company specializing in candid photographs of celebrities in tropical locations. The company sells ' its photographs to celebrity magazines. According to Mavrix, infringement of its photographs is particularly devastáting to its business model. Since Mavrix’s photographs break celebrity news, such as the pregnancy of Beyoneé, infringing posts on sites like ONTD prevent Mavrix from profiting from the sale of the photographs to celebrity magazines.