Opinion ID: 218859
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: DMCA claim

Text: Murphy argues that, by reproducing the Image on the two websites without the NJM credit identifying him as the author, the Station Defendants violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA was passed in 1998 to address the perceived need of copyright owners for “legal sanctions” to enforce various technological measures they had adopted to prevent the unauthorized reproduction of their works. See Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T Corp., 550 U.S. 437, 458 (2007). It also served “to conform United States copyright law to its obligations under two World Intellectual Property Organization („WIPO‟) treaties, which require contracting parties to provide effective legal remedies against the circumvention of protective technological measures used by copyright owners.” MDY Indus. v. Blizzard Entm’t, Inc., 629 F.3d 928, 942 (9th Cir. 2010). 2 The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1367. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Our review of the District Court‟s grant of summary judgment is plenary, which means that we will affirm only if there are no genuine issues of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Noel v. Boeing Co., 622 F.3d 266, 270 n.4 (3d Cir. 2010). 6 The most well-known provision of the DMCA, § 1201, grants a cause of action to copyright owners for the “circumvent[ion of] a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work.” 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)(A).3 Thus, for example, if a movie studio encrypts a DVD so that it cannot be copied without special software or hardware, and an individual uses his own software to “crack” the encryption and make copies without permission, the studio may pursue the copier both for simple infringement under the Copyright 3 Section 1201 provides: (a) Violations regarding circumvention of technological measures.— (1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title... (3) As used in this subsection-- (A) to „circumvent a technological measure‟ means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and (B) a technological measure „effectively controls access to a work‟ if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work. 7 Act and, separately, for his circumvention of the encryption, which is a “technological measure” designed to “control . . . access to” the DVD, under the DMCA. See Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Corley, 273 F.3d 429, 444 (2d Cir. 2001). Before the passage of the DMCA, the studio would have had only a cause of action under the Copyright Act. The DMCA has been criticized in some circles for its “potentially overbroad scope . . . and its ability to chill legitimate and, in some cases, constitutionally protected speech.” G. Parchomovsky & P. Weiser, Beyond Fair Use, 96 Cornell Law Review 91, 104 (2010).4 Murphy‟s claim against the Station defendants involves § 1202 of the DMCA, which deals with “copyright management information” (“CMI”). Section 1202(b) provides in part: No person shall, without the authority of the copyright owner or the law— (1) intentionally remove or alter any copyright management information, [or] [...] 4 Some courts have held, for instance, that the DMCA substantially narrows the protection offered by the “fair use” affirmative defense to copyright infringement by permitting plaintiffs to bring causes of action for circumvention even when they cannot bring causes of action for infringement. See MDY Indus. v. Blizzard Entm’t, Inc. 629 F.3d 928, 950-52 (9th Cir. 2010); contra Chamberlain Group, Inc. v. Skylink Techs. Inc., 381 F.3d 1178, 1203 (Fed. Cir. 2004). 8 (3) distribute, import for distribution, or publicly perform works, copies of works, or phonorecords, knowing that copyright management information has been removed or altered without authority of the copyright owner or the law, knowing or, with respect to civil remedies under section 1203, having reasonable grounds to know, that it will induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement of any right under this title. Section 1202(c) then defines “copyright management information” as certain types of “information conveyed in connection with copies . . . of a work . . ., including in digital form, . . . : (2) [t]he name of, and other identifying information about, the author of a work . . . .”5 Murphy‟s argument is straightforward. He contends that the NJM gutter credit identifying him as the author of the Image is CMI because it is “the name of . . . the author of [the Image]” and was “conveyed in connection with copies of [the Image].” By posting the Image on the two websites without the credit, therefore, the Station Defendants “remove[d] or alter[ed]” CMI and “distribute[d]” a work knowing that its CMI had been “removed or altered” in violation of § 1202.6 5 Only the type of information identified in subsection (2) is at issue in this case. 6 Because the District Court rejected Murphy‟s argument on this point, it did not consider whether summary judgment was appropriate on the other elements of a § 1202 claim, such as whether the Station Defendants acted knowing that the removal would induce or enable infringement. Thus, 9 The Station Defendants, on the other hand, insist that one cannot read § 1202 in isolation, but must interpret it in conjunction with § 1201 and in light of the legislative history of the DMCA to impose an additional limitation on the definition of CMI. They argue that the chapter as a whole protects various kinds of automated systems which protect and manage copyrights. Specifically, § 1201 covers the systems (the “technological measures” discussed above) that protect copyrighted materials and § 1202 covers the systems that manage copyrighted materials (such as the name of the author of a work). Therefore, they conclude, despite the apparently plain language of § 1202, information like the name of the author of a work is not CMI unless it also functions as part of an “automated copyright protection or management system.” In other words, to remove, as the Station Defendants did, a printed credit from a magazine photograph which was then posted to a website does not violate § 1202, because the credit, although apparently meeting the definition of § 1202(c)(2), was not part of an “automated copyright protection or management system.” They claim that both the legislative history of the DMCA and the language of the World Intellectual Property Organization treaties which the DMCA implemented support such a reading. Viewed thus, the Station Defendants argue, § 1202 will be seen not to apply to Murphy‟s name as it appeared in the gutter credit near the Image. We are not aware of any other federal appellate courts which have considered whether the definition of “copyright although the Station Defendants attempt to raise that issue now, we take no position on it at this time. 10 management information” should be restricted to the context of “automated copyright protection or management systems.”7 We begin, as we must, with the text of § 1202. “Because it is presumed that Congress expresses its intent through the ordinary meaning of its language, every exercise of statutory interpretation begins with an examination of the plain language of the statute . . . . When the statute‟s language is plain, the sole function of the courts—at least where the disposition required by the test is not absurd—is to enforce it according to its terms.” Alston v. Countrywide Fin. Corp., 585 F.3d 753, 759 (3d Cir. 2009) (citations, quotations marks, and parentheticals omitted). The exception to this rule is narrowly cast. “Generally, where the text of a statute is unambiguous, the statute should be enforced as written and only the most extraordinary showing of contrary intentions in the legislative history will justify a departure from that language.” In re Philadelphia Newspapers, LLC, 599 F.3d 298, 314 (3d Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). There is nothing particularly difficult about the text of § 1202. Even the Station Defendants, and the courts whose decisions they cite, do not contend that § 1202 is, in itself, 7 The district courts which have considered the question to date have reached different conclusions. Some have indeed adopted the Station Defendants‟ reading of § 1202. See, e.g., IQ Group v. Wiesner Pub., LLC, 409 F. Supp. 2d 587 (D.N.J. 2006); Textile Secrets Int’l, Inc. v. Ya-Ya Brand, Inc., 524 F. Supp. 2d. 1184, 1198 (C.D. Cal. 2007). A number of others, however, have rejected it. See, e.g., Agence France Presse v. Morel, --- F. Supp. 2d ---, 2011 WL 147718, at  (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 14, 2011). 11 ambiguous or unclear. Read in isolation, § 1202 simply establishes a cause of action for the removal of (among other things) the name of the author of a work when it has been “conveyed in connection with copies of” the work. The statute imposes no explicit requirement that such information be part of an “automated copyright protection or management system,” as the Station Defendants claim. In fact, it appears to be extremely broad, with no restrictions on the context in which such information must be used in order to qualify as CMI. If there is a difficulty here, it is a problem of policy, not of logic. Such an interpretation might well provide an additional cause of action under the DMCA in many circumstances in which only an action for copyright infringement could have been brought previously. Whether or not this result is desirable, it is not absurd, as might compel us to make a more restrictive reading of § 1202‟s scope.8 8 The Station Defendants argue that this interpretation would cause the DMCA to “swallow up” the Copyright Act, effectively making the latter redundant. In fact, if an infringer merely copies an entire work whole—as in the example above of a pirated film on DVD—Section 1202 will probably not be implicated, as the infringer will not have removed or altered any CMI. The Station Defendants point out that most fair uses will involve the removal of CMI. However, unlike § 1201, § 1202 applies only when a defendant knows or has reasonable grounds to know that the removal will “induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal” an infringement. Thus, those intending to make fair use of a copyrighted work are unlikely to be liable under § 1202. 12 The Station Defendants argue that to read § 1202 by itself is to take too narrow a view of the “plain language” of the statutory text. When interpreting statutory language, we must examine the statute as a whole, rather than considering provisions in isolation. Samantar v. Yousuf, --- U.S. ---, 130 S. Ct. 2278, 2289 (2010). However, nothing in § 1201, the provision regarding circumvention of “technological measures” discussed above to which the Station Defendants point most insistently, restricts the meaning of CMI in § 1202 to information contained in “automated copyright protection or management systems.” Section 1201 does not mention “copyright management information”; in fact, it does not refer to § 1202 at all. Neither does it contain the phrase “automated copyright protection or management systems.”9 Similarly, § 1202 does not refer to § 1201, and the definition of CMI is located squarely in § 1202. If, in fact, § 1201 and § 1202 were meant to have such interrelated interpretations, it is peculiar that there is no explicit indication of this in the text of either provision. Instead, to all appearances, § 1201 and § 1202 establish independent causes of action which arise from different conduct on the part of defendants, albeit with similar civil remedies and criminal penalties. It may strike some as more intellectually harmonious to interpret the prohibition of removal of CMI in § 1202 as restricted to the context of § 1201, but nothing in the text of § 1201 actually dictates that it 9 The Station Defendants do not argue that “technological measures,” as defined in § 1201, are the same as “automated copyright protection or management systems.” 13 should be taken to limit the meaning of “copyright management information.”10 As for the purpose of the statute as a whole, it is undisputed that the DMCA was intended to expand—in some cases, as discussed above, significantly—the rights of copyright owners. The parties here differ only as to their conclusions regarding the extent to which the DMCA expanded those rights. Murphy‟s definition of CMI provides for a significantly broader cause of action than the Station Defendants‟ does. However, the Station Defendants can point to nothing in the statute as a whole which compels the adoption of their reading instead of Murphy‟s. In short, considering the purpose of the statute does not provide us with meaningful guidance in this case. As discussed above, therefore, in accordance with In re Philadelphia Newspapers, we must look to the legislative history of the DMCA only for that “extraordinary showing of contrary intentions” which would justify rejecting a straightforward reading of § 1202. 599 F.3d at 314 (holding that a narrow exception to the plain meaning rule applies in the “rare cases [where] the literal application of a statute will produce a result demonstrably at odds with the intentions of 10 The Station Defendants point out that the title of the chapter to which § 1201 and § 1202 belong is “Copyright Protection and Management Systems.” However, “[i]t is a well-settled rule of statutory interpretation that titles and section headings cannot limit the plain meaning of statutory text where that text is clear.” M.A. ex rel. E.S. v. StateOperated Sch. Dist. of the City of Newark, 344 F.3d 335, 348 (3d Cir. 2003). 14 its drafters” (citing United States v. Ron Pair Enters. Inc., 489 U.S. 235, 242 (1989))). The Station Defendants rely on the survey of the legislative history undertaken by the courts in IQ Group v. Wiesner Pub., LLC, 409 F. Supp. 2d 587 (D.N.J. 2006) and Textile Secrets Int’l, Inc. v. Ya-Ya Brand, Inc., 524 F. Supp. 2d. 1184, 1198 (C.D. Cal. 2007). The IQ Group decision placed most emphasis on a “white paper” of the working group of the Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF), the organization that produced the first draft of §§ 1201 and 1202. This white paper reported that A combination of file- and system-based access controls using encryption technologies, digital signatures and steganography are . . . employed by owners of works to address copyright management concerns. . . . To implement these rights management functions, information will likely be included in digital versions of a work (i.e., copyright management information) to inform the user about the authorship and ownership of a work . . . . 409 F. Supp. 2d at 594 (emphasis added). Thus, the IQ Group court concluded, the paper “understood „copyright management information‟ to be information . . . that is included in digital versions of the work so as to implement „rights management functions‟ of „rights management systems.‟” Id. at 595. And, as the text of § 1202 was not altered before its adoption by Congress, the court found that this gave a clear indication of Congressional intent. Id. at 594-95. Additionally, the Senate Committee Report to § 1202 describes CMI as including “such items as the title of the work, the author . . . CMI need not be in digital form, but CMI in digital form is expressly included.” Id. at 596. 15 The Textile Secrets court also looked to the World Intellectual Property Organization treaties that the DMCA was intended to implement. The WIPO treaties use a term “rights management information” and define it as “information which identifies the work, the author of the work . . . when any of these items of information is attached to a copy of a work or appears in connection with the communication of a work to the public.” See, e.g., WIPO Copyright Treaty Art. 12 (adopted Dec. 20, 1996), available at http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/trtdocs_wo033.html#P 89_12682. They require that parties to the treaties provide adequate remedies against the “remov[al] or alter[ation of] any electronic rights management information without authority.” Id. (emphasis added) The Textile Secrets court concluded that “electronic rights management information” as used in the WIPO treaties and “copyright management information” as used in § 1202 must be coterminous in meaning. 524 F. Supp. 2d at 1198. Therefore, it found, “copyright management information” must be electronic. Id. While this analysis has some force, in the end, the strongest case which the Station Defendants can make is that the legislative history of the DMCA is consistent with its interpretation, not that it actually contradicts the reading advocated by Murphy. The IITF white paper describes CMI as “information [that] will likely be included in digital versions of a work . . . to inform the user about the authorship and ownership of a work.” IQ Group, 409 F. Supp. 2d at 594. This description leaves the question of just how that information will be included—that is, whether it must be used in some form of “an automated copyright protection or 16 management system” or whether it can be conveyed by other means—entirely open. Similarly, the WIPO treaties‟ definition of “electronic rights management information” is “information [that] will likely be included in digital versions of a work . . . to inform the user about the authorship and ownership of a work.”11 Although this definition occurs in the context of a broader discussion of systems that control access to copyrighted works, it does not require that “electronic rights management information” be embedded in such systems.12 In addition, neither the WIPO treaties nor the DMCA indicate the precise relationship between the concepts of CMI and “electronic rights management information” as discussed in the treaties. The Station Defendants argue that their meanings must be identical, but Congress was certainly free, in implementing the WIPO treaties, to define “copyright management information” more broadly than “electronic rights management information.”13 11 The Station Defendants agree with Murphy that, whatever CMI is, it is not necessary for it to be “digital.” For example, they concede that a bar code printed in ink on a paper label might be CMI. 12 Again, the Station Defendants do not argue that CMI must be presented in “electronic” form, only that it function in connection with an electronic (or automated; the Station Defendants treat the terms as interchangeable, though they are not) copyright protection or management system. 13 There is even a textual argument that Congress did so. The DMCA‟s definition of “copyright management information” uses language very similar to that of the WIPO treaties‟ 17 definition of “rights management information” (without a reference to a medium or format). Compare information conveyed in connection with copies . . . of a work . . ., including in digital form, . . . : (2) [t]he name of, and other identifying information about, the author of a work . . . 17 U.S.C. § 1202(c) (the DMCA‟s definition of “copyright management information” with respect to author-identifying information) with information which identifies the . . . author of the work . . . when [this] information is attached to a copy of a work or appears in connection with the communication of a work . . . WIPO Copyright Treaty Art. 12(2) (the WIPO treaties‟ definition of “rights management information” for the same). The WIPO treaties then go on (as the DMCA does not) to impose certain requirements concerning only electronic rights management information, which implies that “rights management information” might well exist in other forms. It might therefore be argued that the DMCA‟s definition of “copyright management information” tracks the more expansive WIPO definition of “rights management information,” rather than WIPO‟s narrower (if still not clearly defined) “electronic rights management information.” If so, then arguments about whether the WIPO treaties intended to require electronic rights management information to function as part of “an automated copyright protection or management system” are irrelevant. 18 Thus, while it is possible to read the legislative history to support the Station Defendants‟ interpretation of CMI, that history does not provide the “extraordinary showing of contrary intentions” which would compel us to disregard the plain language of the statute. This is especially so because the Station Defendants are essentially asking us to rewrite § 1202 to insert a term—that is, “automated copyright protection or management system”—which appears nowhere in the text of the DMCA and which lacks a clear definition. We would need compelling justification indeed to adopt such a statutorily-unmoored interpretation. Therefore, we find that CMI, as defined in § 1202(c), is not restricted to the context of “automated copyright protection or management systems.” Rather, a cause of action under § 1202 of the DMCA potentially lies whenever the types of information listed in § 1202(c)(1)-(8) and “conveyed in connection with copies . . . of a work . . . including in digital form” is falsified or removed, regardless of the form in which that information is conveyed. In this case, the mere fact that Murphy‟s name appeared in a printed gutter credit near the Image rather than as data in an “automated copyright protection or management system” does not prevent it from qualifying as CMI or remove it from the protection of § 1202.14