Class Action Copyright Suit Filed Against Scribd… By Jammie Thomas' Lawyers?

Legal Issues

from the say-what-now? dept

Well, this is odd. Back in March, some book publishers and authors started blaming Scribd for hosting infringing scanned and uploaded books. Of course, they ignored the fact that Scribd is quite aggressive in taking down any infringing content that it discovers, and has a filtering system to try to catch as much as possible. Under any reasonable reading of the DMCA, Scribd is protected under the safe harbors. It’s not doing the actual infringing itself, but providing a tool, and it appears to go above and beyond the legal requirements in trying to help authors and publishers.

Yet, given that noise back in March, you had to know that a lawsuit was brewing, and it’s not too surprising to find out that the first one filed is a class action attempt. What is surprising, however, is that the lawyers bringing the case, Joe Sibley and Kiwi Camara, are the same lawyers who represented Jammie Thomas in her recent loss to the record labels. Camara and Sibley, in that case, failed to do some of the most basic things you would have expected in such a defense (though, they were brought on to her defense just before the trial began).

Their argument against Scribd doesn’t seem to make much sense at all:

“Under the aegis of self-promoting misinterpretations of federal statutes,” the lawyers wrote in their complaint, “the West Coast technology industry has produced a number of start-up firms premised on the notion that commercial copyright infringement is not illegal, unless and until the injured party discovers and complains of the infringing activity, and (the) infringer fails to respond to such complaints.”

That’s simply not true in any sense of what they describe. None of the companies — Scribd included — is claiming that infringement is not against the law. They’re just saying — and the law pretty clearly reflects this — that it is not their liability for infringements done by users. No one is denying the right of the copyright holders to go after those who actually did the uploading. Camara and Sibley seem to be making up a strawman that completely ignores the actual arguments. They continue:

“Apparently (the West Coast start-ups) believe any business may misappropriate and then publish intellectual property, as long as it ceases to use a stolen work when an author complains…Many millions of dollars have been invested in this business plan.”

Again, this is simply incorrect. The businesses themselves are not doing the “misappropriating” or the “publishing.” That’s the entire reason for the safe harbors in the DMCA, to recognize the difference between a tool provider and a user. That these lawyers can’t understand the same difference is highly questionable — especially right after a court set Universal Music straight on the very same issue. People keep acting as if the DMCA safe harbors mean that copyright infringement is somehow not enforced, but that’s a plainly wrong understanding of what’s happening in the world. The entire point of the safe harbors is to make sure that the correct party is liable. It still amazes me that otherwise intelligent people can’t seem to recognize this distinction.

Filed Under: class action, copyright, dmca, joe sibley, kiwi camara, safe harbors
Companies: scribd