Fire Alarm Companies

We 've in the past noted that Perfect 10' s numerous lawsuits claim out copyright infringement against all types of businesses haven 't many victories for the company, but have found a number of Court judgments, which are very helpful been in the clear exceptions within copyright law, have been very useful in other cases. The only really questionable Perfect 10 ruling, I can think of is that we just mentioned earlier this week, in which a court seemed confused about the difference between direct and indirect copyright infringement, but I 'm confident that this will sorted soon enough cility.

However, in another Perfect 10 case, a portion of its long and almost entirely failed campaign against Google, we have chosen a fantastic Court of Appeals (9th Circuit), that could be a very big deal, in a reversal of earlier precedents and noted that a demonstration of copyright infringement not automatically prove "irreparable harm," and that it also should not means an automatic injunction in such cases is used (thanks to Eric Goldman for pointing us to the conclusion).

The ruling is significant for a number of reasons. Obviously, changing a court's position on things, it needs a good reason to do so, and here the court relies on the very important Supreme Court ruling in the MercExchange case, which noted that by default, in an injunction patent cases does not make sense. Instead, a court should assess a variety of factors and whether actual harm that an injunction is necessary. In this case, the Court has now applied the same reasoning of the copyright for the first time. This isn 't totally surprising since the MercExchange Supreme Court decision actually leave something to Copyright itself, but it was not yet a clear decision whether the decision applied MercExchange copyright. We have noted in the last year that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals had the question raised whether MercExchange applied copyright law, and sent the case back to a lower court to consider. In this case we have a solid system (which also noted that Second Circuit ruling), copyright that MercExchange also applies to:

We agree with the Second Circuit. As explained in eBay, is the language of § 502 (a) permissive and traditional equitable principles should be stressed: "[T] he Copyright Act provides that courts" may "grant injunctive relief" on such terms as [they] deem useful to prevent or restrain a breach of copyright. "547 U.S. at 392 (stating 17 USC § 502 (a)). Nothing in the statute gives Congress intend a" substantial deviation "from the" traditional four-factor framework that governs the award of injunctive relief, to approve the "id . at 391, 394, or to undermine the equitable principle that such relief an "extraordinary and drastic cure," which "is never awarded as of right," Munaf v. Green, 553 U.S. 674, 689-90 (2008) (internal offer notes omitted). We conclude that the appropriateness of injunctive relief in cases under the Copyright Act on a case-by-case basis in accordance with traditional equitable principles, without the use of presumptions or a "thumb on the scale "must be evaluated in favor of granting this exemption.

And, more precisely, the dish is called directly (citations omitted & quotes):

In sum, we conclude that our long-standing rule that a representation increases a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits of a copyright is entitled to a presumption of irreparable harm clearly inconsistent with the reasoning of the Court's decision in eBay, and therefore effective overridden.

In other words, only show copyright infringement does not create a presumption of irreparable harm (in the Ninth Circuit, at least). Since many of us argued for years that violation does not automatically harm, is this verdict large news.

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