hi Joe Giusti Vadra and we're back in
this episode we are talking about
copyright 1202 claims so without further
ado let's head to the attorney Steve
litigation whiteboard okay so I'm
working hard here on a Saturday but I
wanted to bring you this information
this is a new case called Stephens
versus core logic this came down
recently in the Ninth Circuit that's
gonna cover California Arizona Oregon
Washington Utah Montana those kinds of
things but we're talking about you know
if you're a photographer and you create
a photo and you put it online somewhere
and somebody strips off what we call the
CMI the copyright management information
and it looks like they're trying to
steal your photo or whatnot
is there an infringement claim under the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act that's
the DMCA so we're gonna talk a little
bit about this in this video so let's
let's head here so now I've got a
picture over here let me get my
yardstick here so I've got a picture
here of a photographer and this case had
to do with a photographer Stevens who
his job and his company was affordable
aerial photos and what they did is they
create photos aerials real estate shots
you know things that brokers can use to
help their listings to help people fight
to find customers for their listings so
they would basically take the photos but
they would license them to the broker
not oh no they wouldn't sell it to him
they would license the photos meaning
that the photographer still retained the
copyrights and the ownership and all the
bundle of Rights that come with a
copyright so they would license them to
the real estate company the real estate
company the broker or the salesperson
would upload them into the MLS
that's Multiple Listing Service when you
have a real estate deal you're gonna put
your photos into this MLS system one or
more and CoreLogic was the owner of the
MLS system okay and that's basically
where brokers can come in and find out
what's for sale and meet with their
clients and say I found some great new
listings to look at but that's what this
case is about whoops
give me a second here so we're dealing
with
17 USC that's United States code 1202
this is a section at issue now what was
happening was core logic when they were
takin these photos they were turning him
into thumbnails or squeezing them down
inside and what was happening is some of
this CMI and we're gonna talk about this
stuff below here the CMI the copyright
management information was being
squeezed out okay and so the
photographers didn't like this they said
what's going on you guys are stripping
out our copyright management information
our CMI you're removing it you're
altering it that's against the law we
want damages and so that's what this
case was about it came from the southern
district courts where the courts found a
motion for summary judgment in favor of
CoreLogic and that was upheld on appeal
in this case with it with the Ninth
Circuit US Court of Appeals so I'm gonna
sit over here for a second and we're
gonna take a look at this CMI now this
case talked about and we're gonna get to
1202 but 1202 basically says that you
can't that it is that let me just read
it here to you from my sheet section
1202 provides no person shall without
the authority of the copyright owner
intentionally remove or alter any
copyright management information knowing
or having reasonable grounds to know
that it will induce enable facilitate or
conceal infringement of any copyright
okay so it's intentional knowing having
reasonable grounds to know that it will
induce enable facilitate or conceal
infringement of copyright so that's what
the law prohibits that's kind of what
was happening here is that this
information and I have three different
categories of information and when you
take these photos in here we have
section 17 USC 1202 information the
photo can contain the author that would
be deemed CMI the copyright owner if
it's a different own
the title of the photo could be taken
and the terms and conditions for the use
that's the different type of copyright
management information you may be
dealing with CMI but this case also
talked about exif which is exchangeable
image file format and what that is
that's information on your camera when
you're using your camera some cameras
will actually just put out this kind of
information or you have settings that
will allow you to put out this kind of
information
the eix in this case could of concerned
and I'm not saying in this case but
these are the types of things you may
find with eix exif when the photo was
taken and where the shutter speed the
model and serial number of the camera
the apparatus settings the light
sensitivity and focal length of the lens
so you have a lot of different things
under the II IX II IX II IX F category
and what they were saying here is that
in transforming this and the thumbnail
photos you know what a thumbnail photo
is that this information was getting
squeezed out so they weren't happy with
that and then you also have IPTC
metadata and that stands for some
international convention of some sort
but IPTC metadata and that can include
the title of the image keywords caption
and a description and again copyright
restrictions so this is all the
different types of CMI that you might
have copyright management information
and so if somebody is intentionally
eliminating this information or removing
it altering it so that they can infringe
a copyright or induce it as I just read
then you can have a violation of the
DMCA and that carries damages and
attorney fees and other things so this
was what's at issue now this case really
stands for the proposition that it has
to be intentional that it has to be an
intentional infringement and in this
case the court said that the
photographers did not could not
and did not make the allegations that
this was intentional that it was knowing
that they were trying to do this to
promote or conceal and infringement it
just wasn't there what they said is this
was software and you know they had tried
CoreLogic had tried to fix it but it was
just kind of doing this so they weren't
really trying to infringe the software
and the court basically said you have to
make I'll just read it here in short to
satisfy the knowledge requirement a
plaintiff bringing a section 1202 B one
claim must offer more than a mere
assertion that when CMI metadata is
removed copyright infringement
plaintiffs lose an important method of
identifying a photo as infringing so it
has to be something more than hey I lost
my information that could lead to an
infringement the court said no there has
to be something certain you have to
allege for example a pattern of conduct
or a modus operandi - so there has to be
some allegation that there's some sort
of knowledge mental state requirement
some sort of scienter that they were
trying to do this by stripping some of
the CMI away so that's really a quick
look at what the DMCA twelve o twelve
claim looks like if you're facing issues
with the with a 1202 claim you can find
out more information at our website DMCA
council comm and again this is Turney
steve i hope you liked this video and if
you do feel free to subscribe to our
channel or punch that like button that
always helps us out but other than that
we hope you appreciate this have a great
weekend we got to get run and we'll see
you again on Monday take care