Opinion ID: 805822
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Seeking Secular Judgment

Text: The Monastery took action. On December 28, 2007, it filed the Complaint in this action alleging infringement of the Monastery's copyrights in the Works and breach of the Settlement Agreement for the continued display of portions of the St. Isaac work. In response, the Archbishop promptly removed what he believed at the time to be the allegedly infringing material from the site. He then filed a motion to dismiss the Monastery's Complaint on February 14, 2008, which the court subsequently denied. When his efforts proved unsuccessful, the Archbishop answered the Monastery's Complaint on April 24, 2008. In his Answer, the Archbishop admitted that the Works, including a portion -7- of the St. Isaac work, were available on his Website. However, he denied both the Monastery's claim of ownership to the Works' copyrights, as well as its claims of copyright infringement. The Archbishop also raised several defenses, including that the Monastery's Works were made for hire for ROCOR; the Works had been published without copyright notice and were in the public domain; the Archbishop made fair use of the Works; and the dispute was a Church matter, best left to a different hierarchy of laws. On October 30, 2009, each of the parties filed cross motions for partial summary judgment. The Monastery claimed it was entitled to partial summary judgment because the Archbishop had breached the parties' prior Settlement Agreement by posting a portion of the St. Isaac work on his Website, and because the Archbishop's posting of the work, in and of itself, constituted copyright infringement. The Archbishop riposted, challenging the Monastery's ownership of copyrights in the Pentecostarion, the Octoechos, the Psalter, and the St. Isaac works, and asserting that ROCOR was the true owner of the copyrights at issue. Staying firm in his position that the Monastery lacked any legal right to enforce ROCOR's copyrights against the Archbishop, the Archbishop argued there was no genuine issue of material fact for the court to resolve. The district court found merit to the Monastery's motion. Holy Transfiguration I, 685 F. Supp. 2d at 229. It granted partial -8- summary judgment in favor of the Monastery as to both the breach of contract claim and allegation of copyright infringement of the St. Isaac work on February 18, 2010. Id. at 223-26. It in turn denied the Archbishop's motion, noting that he proffered no valid defense to the Settlement Agreement's enforcement, failed to establish a fair use defense, and could not show a valid ownership claim in the Works. Id. at 223-24, 226-29. Regarding the latter finding, the district court noted that the Archbishop's contention that ROCOR was the true owner of the contested copyrights failed, as the ROCOR documents on which he relied had not been authenticated; the court also expressed misgivings as to whether the Archbishop had standing to raise an ownership claim on behalf of ROCOR. Id. at 228-29 & n.17. On July 23, 2010, the Monastery moved yet again for summary judgment, this time on its surviving infringement claims against the Archbishop. The Monastery alleged that the Archbishop infringed its copyrights in the remaining six Works, specifically, the Psalter, the Prayer Book, the Horologian, the Pentecostarion, the Dismissal Hymns, and the Octoechos. The Archbishop opposed the motion. He asserted that the Monastery was not the owner of the copyrights at issue; the Works were in the public domain, having been published without copyright notice; and the Works lacked originality. Holy Transfiguration II, 754 F. Supp. 2d at 224-26. He also asserted a fair use defense, as -9- well as a defense under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the latter of which limits the liability of internet service providers (ISP) for copyright infringement by their users. See id. at 227-29; see also 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, et seq. The district court again found in favor of the Monastery. Holy Transfiguration II, 754 F. Supp. 2d at 230. As before, the court rejected the Archbishop's argument that ROCOR was the true owner of the copyrights and found no merit to his fair use defense. Id. at 224, 227-28. It additionally held that the Archbishop's evidence in support of his public domain argument was neither clear nor persuasive, id. at 225, and found that [t]he distribution by the Monastery of the Works to a select group of coreligionists for restricted purposes constitutes a limited publication as a matter of law, which does not extinguish a copyright, id. The district court further determined that the Archbishop failed to show the Works lacked originality, as he provided no evidence to support his argument or to counter the Monastery's detailed side-by-side comparisons, illustrating the significant differences between the Monastery's Works and those the Archbishop referenced as illustrating the lack of originality between the Monastery's translations and other versions. Id. at 226. Lastly, the district court deemed the Archbishop's eleventh hour DMCA safe harbor defense, not previously raised in either his Answer or amended Answer, waived and additionally noted the -10- questionable application of the DMCA to the Archbishop. Id. at 228-29. The Archbishop now appeals the district court's grants of summary judgment. The Archbishop reasserts for this court many of his prior arguments, including that ROCOR, not the Monastery, owns the copyrights to the contested Works; the Works lack originality; the Works were placed in the public domain without copyright notices; the Archbishop's use of the Works was fair; and the Archbishop is sheltered from liability pursuant to DMCA's safe harbor provision, and if he is not, he holds neither direct nor vicarious liability for the alleged infringement. The Archbishop additionally scatters the following claims amidst his prior arguments: the Archbishop was not the alleged direct infringer of the Works; the district court improperly determined that the Archbishop lacked standing to challenge the Monastery's ownership of the St. Isaac work; and the Monastery's course of engaging in litigation constituted an improper attempt to create a monopoly. We begin our journey through the intricacies of copyright law applicable to this dispute.