The resale of copyrighted digital sound recordings through a web-based “virtual” marketplace for “pre-owned” digital music operated by ReDigi Inc. was not protected from copyright infringement claims by the first sale doctrine codified in Section 109 of the Copyright Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York City has held. The Second Circuit affirmed a district court’s ruling on summary judgment that ReDigi infringed copyrights owned by Capitol Records, LLC, Capitol Christian Music Group, Inc., and Virgin Records IR Holdings, Inc., specifically their exclusive rights under Section 106(1) to reproduce their copyrighted works. ReDigi’s service created copies—”phonorecords”—that infringed the copyright owners’ exclusive reproduction rights. The service was not protected by a fair use defense because ReDigi did not transform the digital music files in any way, it copied the entire works, and it competed directly with the rights owners in the market for sale of the works (Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi Inc., December 12, 2018, Leval, P.).
Case date: 12 December 2018
Case number: No. 16-2321
Court: United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.
_____________________________
To make sure you do not miss out on regular updates from the Kluwer Copyright Blog, please subscribe here.
Kluwer IP Law
The 2022 Future Ready Lawyer survey showed that 79% of lawyers think that the importance of legal technology will increase for next year. With Kluwer IP Law you can navigate the increasingly global practice of IP law with specialized, local and cross-border information and tools from every preferred location. Are you, as an IP professional, ready for the future?
Learn how Kluwer IP Law can support you.
