英美版权法案例-Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. |
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时间:2013-05-03
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464 U.S. 417 (1984), Supreme Court of the United States Background of the case Two years later, the District Court ruled for Sony, on the basis that noncommercial home use recording was considered fair use, that access to free public information is a First Amendment public interest served by this use. However, this ruling was reversed in part by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which held Sony liable for contributory infringement. The court also held that the Betamax was not a staple article because its main purpose was copying. It went on to suggest damages, injunctive relief and compulsory licenses in lieu of other relief. The Court's decision Conflict within the Court Stevens, in his initial draft, expressed great concern with the possibility that an individual might be liable for copyright infringement for copying a single program in his own home, and for his own use. At the same time, Justice Brennan was wavering on affirming based on the presence of non-infringing uses of the technology - but Brennan was not prepared to say that making home copies for repeated personal use did not constitute an infringement. Justice White, noting Brennan's position, suggested that Stevens shift the basis of his opinion away from arguments about whether home-use was, in fact, an infringement. White pointed out that the issue need not be resolved, because the suit was not against home-users, but against the producers of the technology that enabled them. Justice O'Connor, also initially inclined to affirm the Ninth Circuit, had concerns about the potential to shift the burden of proving harm away from the plaintiff. The District Court had found that the plaintiffs had failed to prove that they were harmed; O'Connor was unable to come to terms with Blackmun's reluctance to agree that the actual harm must be provable. Stevens therefore adjusted his draft to accommodate the positions taken by Brennan and O'Connor. In so doing, he shifted the vote of the Court from a 6-3 majority for affirming the Ninth Circuit to a 5-4 majority for reversing the Ninth Circuit. The majority opinion On the question of whether Sony could be described as "contributing" to copyright infringement, the Court stated: There must be a balance between a copyright holder's legitimate demand for effective - not merely symbolic - protection of the statutory monopoly, and the rights of others freely to engage in substantially unrelated areas of commerce. Accordingly, the sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes. Indeed, it need merely be capable of substantial noninfringing uses.... The question is thus whether the Betamax is capable of commercially significant noninfringing uses ... one potential use of the Betamax plainly satisfies this standard, however it is understood: private, noncommercial time-shifting in the home. It does so both (A) because respondents have no right to prevent other copyright holders from authorizing it for their programs, and (B) because the District Court's factual findings reveal that even the unauthorized home time-shifting of respondents' programs is legitimate fair use....
Blackmun's dissent Section 106 of the 1976 [Copyright Revision] Act grants the owner of a copyright a variety of exclusive rights in the copyrighted work, including ... the right "to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords." ... Although the word "copies" is in the plural in 106(1), there can be no question that under the Act the making of even a single unauthorized copy is prohibited.... Fair use may be found when a work is used "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, . . . scholarship, or research." ... other examples may be found in the case law. Each of these uses, however, reflects a common theme: each is a productive use, resulting in some added benefit to the public beyond that produced by the first author's work....
Subsequent developments Immediately after their loss in the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs lobbied Congress to pass legislation that would protect them from the effects of home copying. However, in the eight years that had passed since the suit was initially filed, the use of home recording devices had become sufficiently widespread that Congress was not prepared to take any actions to the detriment of the significant population of VCR owners. The film industry lobbied Congress to impose a small statutory royalty on the sale of blank videotapes, but Congress would not follow suit, noting the increased profits for film studios in the home video rental and sales market. The DMCA modified the law that the Sony decision was based upon in several ways, and new interpretations are constantly being handed down. Many of the same points of law that were litigated in this case are still being argued in various cases, particularly in light of recent peer-to-peer lawsuits; for example, in A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. 239 F.3d (9th Cir. 2001), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a fair use "space shifting" argument raised as an analogy to the time-shifting argument that prevailed in Sony. The Ninth Circuit further distinguished the cases because the Napster defendants operated a system that allowed them to monitor and control the potentially infringing activities of its users. In August 2004, in the case of MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. , the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Grokster's favor due to its "substantial noninfringing uses". The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case on March 29, 2005. The Supreme Court decision of June 27, 2005 reversed the decision of the Ninth Court of Appeals "Because substantial evidence supports MGM on all elements, summary judgment for the respondents was error. On remand, reconsideration of MGM's summary judgement motion will be in order." Pp. 23-24 380 F.3d 1154, vacated and remanded.
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