Justia Internet Law Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals
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Plaintiffs in this consolidated class action allege copyright infringements arising from defendant publishers' unauthorized electronic reproduction of plaintiff authors' written works. The district court certified a class for settlement purposes and approved a settlement agreement over the objection of ten class members (objectors). In this appeal, objectors challenged the propriety of the settlement's release provision, the certification of the class, and the process by which the district court reached its decisions. Although the court rejected the objectors' arguments regarding the release, the court concluded that the district court abused its discretion in certifying the class and approving the settlement because the named plaintiffs failed to adequately represent the interest of all class members. The court did not reach the procedural challenges, which were moot in light of the court's class certification holding. Therefore, the court vacated the district court's order and remanded for further proceedings. View "In re Literary Works in Elec. Databases Litig." on Justia Law

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Plaintiff sued defendant, claiming, among other things, copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. 501, trademark infringement under 15 U.S.C. 1114(a), and unfair competition under New York state law. At issue was whether the first sale doctrine, 17 U.S.C. 109(a), applied to copyrighted workers produced outside the United States but imported and resold in the United States. The court held that the first sale doctrine did not apply to works manufactured outside of the United States; the district court did not err in declining to instruct the jury regarding the unsettled state of the first sale doctrine; and the district court did not err in admitting evidence of defendant's gross revenues. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed. View "John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. Kirtsaeng" on Justia Law

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Plaintiff, Penguin Group (USA) Inc. ("Penguin"), filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against defendant, an Oregon not-for-profit corporation with its principal place of business in Arizona, alleging that defendant's posting of four Penguin books on the Internet violated Penguin's copyrights in works that it had published. In answer to a question the court certified to the New York Court of Appeals, that court concluded that "[in] copyright infringement cases involving the uploading of a copyrighted printed literary work onto the Internet, ... the situs of injury for purposes of determining long-arm jurisdiction under [the relevant section of New York's long-arm-jurisdiction statute is] ... the location of the copyright holder." Accordingly, the court held that the Court of Appeals' decision compelled it to conclude, for purposes of the personal jurisdiction analysis pursuant to New York's long-arm statute, that the situs of Penguin's alleged injury was New York. Therefore, the judgment dismissing Penguin's complaint was vacated and the case remanded to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion and with the Court of Appeals' response to the certified question.