UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
No. 94-1778
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, MACMILLAN, INC.,
and ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INCORPORATED,
Plaintiffs-Appelles
vs.
MICHICAN DOCUMENT SERVICES, INC.,
and JAMES M. SMITH,
Defendents-Appellants.
ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SUPPLEMENTAL BRIEF OF PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES,
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, MACMILLAN, INC.
and ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INCORPORATED
COUNSEL FOR PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES
| Ronald S. Rauchberg |
James E. Stewart |
| Jon A. Baumgarten |
J. Michael Huget |
| Charles S. Sims |
Butzel Long, P. C. |
| Herman L. Goldsmith |
150 West Jefferson |
| Proskauer Rose Goetz |
Detroit, Michigan 48226 |
| & Mendelsohn LLP |
(313) 225-7069 |
| 1585 Broadway |
|
| New York, New York 10036 |
|
| (212) 969-3418 |
|
May 17, 1996
Table of Contents
- TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
- PRELIMINARY
STATEMENT
- ARGUMENT
- I. THE DEFENDANTS' COPYING AND SALE
OF THE PUBLISHERS' COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL WAS NOT A FAIR USE
- A. Defendants Were Commercially
Exploiting The Publishers' Copyrights
- B. The Legislative History Of The
Copyright Act
Should Be Considered And It Specifically
Disfavors Copying Like That In Suit
- C. The Copying In Suit Was Qualitatively
And Quantitatively Significant
- D. The Copying In Suit Injured The
Publishers'
Actual And Potential Markets
- E. There Is No Exemption For Educational
Copying
- DEFENDANTS' INFRINGEMENTS WERE
WILLFUL
- CONCLUSION
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Cases:
- Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.. Inc. et al v.
New York University, et al.,1983
Copyright L. Dec. ¶ 25,544 (S.D.N.Y.
1983) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page
25
- American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, Inc.,
60 F.3d 913 (2d Cir. 1994) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . passim
- Basic Books, Inc. v. Gnomon Corp., 1980
Copyright L. Dec. ¶ 25,145 (D. Conn.
1980) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages
7, 25
- Basic Books. Inc. v. Kinko's Graphics Corp.,
758 F. Supp. 1522 (S.D.N.Y. 1991) . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . passim
- Bridge Publications, Inc. v. Vien,
827 F. Supp. 629 (S. D. Cal. 1993) . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 8
- Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music,
114 S. Ct. 1164 (1994) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . passim
- Encyclopedia Britannica Educ. Corp. v.
Crooks, 542 F. Supp. 1156 (W.D.N.Y.
1982) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages
14, 30
- First Comics, Inc. v. World Color Press, Inc.,
884 F.2d 1033 (7th Cir. 1989), cert. denied,
493 U. S. 1075 (1990) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . Pages 10 11
- Folsom v. Marsh, 9 F. Cas. 342 (C. C. D. Mass.
1841) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages
7, 18, 19
- Harper & Row, Publishers. Inc. v. Nation
Enter.,
471 U.S. 539 (1985) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . passim
- Harper & Row, Publishers. Inc. v. Tyco
Copy Serv., 1981 Copyright L.
Dec. ¶ 25,230 (D. Conn. 1981) . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . Page 25
- Knitwaves, Inc. v. Lollytogs Ltd., 71 F. 3d 996
(2d Cir. 1995) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . Page 32
- Los Angeles News Serv. v. Tullo, 973 F.2d 791
(9th Cir. 1992) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . Pages 5, 6, 28
- Macmillan Co. v. King, 223 F. 862
(D. Mass. 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . Pages 9, 17, 30
- Marcus v. Rowley, 695 F. 2d 1171
(9th Cir. 1983) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . Pages 12, 14, 29
- Pacific & Southern Co. v. Duncan, 744 F.2d
1490 (11th Cir. 1984), cert. denied,
498 U. S. 1109 (1991) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . Page 28
- Peer Int'l Corp. v. Pausa Records, Inc., 909
F.2d 1332 (9th Cir. 1990), cert. denied,
498 U. S. 1109 (1991) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . Page 28
- Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Frena,
839 F. Supp. 1552, 1558 (M. D. Fla. 1993) . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 6
- Respect Inc. v. Fremgen, 36 U.S.P.Q. 2d 1278
- Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios. Inc.,
464 U.S. 417 (1984) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . Pages 12, 29
- Stewart v. Abend, 495 U. S. 207 (1990) . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . Pages 13, 22, 26
- United States v. Steerwell Leisure Corp., 598
F. Supp. 171 (W.D.N.Y. 1984) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . Page 32
- West Virginia Univ. Hosps., Inc. v. Casey,
499 U. S. 83 (1991) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . Page 13
- Wihtol v. Crow,
309 F.2d 777 (8th Cir. 1962) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . Page 29
- Willaims & Wilkins Co. v. United States,487
F.2d 1345 (Ct. Cl. 1973), aff'd by an
equally divided court, 420 U. S. 376
(1975) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages
21, 23
- Wolff v. Institute of Elec. & Electronics
Engineers, Inc., 768 F. Supp. 66
(S.D.N.Y. 1991) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . Page 28
Statutes And Rules:
- U. S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 8 . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 8
Statutes and Other Authorities
- 17 U. S. C. § 101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . Page 27
- 17 U. S. C. § 107 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . Pages 3, 4, 8, 13, 21
- 17 U. S. C. § 504(c) (1) . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . Page 30
Legislative Materials
- H. R. Rep. No. 1476, 94th Cong., 2d Sess.
(1976) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . passim
- H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1733, 94th Cong.,
2d Sess. (1976) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . Page 14
- H. R. Rep. No. 2237, 89th Cong.,
2d Sess. (1966) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . Pages 25, 28
Other Authorities
- 2 Nimmer on Copyright, § 8.02 . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . Page 10
- 3 Nimmer on Copyright, § 12.04 . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . Page 10
- 3 Nimmer on Copyright, § 13.05 . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 6, 21
- Patry, Fair Use In Copyright Law . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 6, 8, 22
- Ringer, First Thoughts on the Copyright Act of 1976,
13 Copy Right 187 (1977) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . Page 13
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
Plaintiffs-Appellees ("the Publishers"), publishers who own
the copyrights that the district court below held were infringed,
submit this brief to supplement the brief they previously
filed when this appeal was first heard (the "Publishers' Brief")
This supplemental brief on rehearing is not a substitute for
the Publishers' Brief, or for the Publishers' petition for
rehearing. We address here only those points which, in view
of the panel's now-vacated decision, warrant additional discussion.
This is a copyright infringement action in which publishers
of works normally sold in educational markets, and licensed
for photocopying in those markets, sued a copyshop chain that
competes in those same markets. The copyshop, like other copyshops
in the same business, copies and sells anthologies called
"coursepacks" that consist of substantial excerpts of copyrighted
works. The excerpts that will appear in a coursepack are chosen
well before the commencement of a semester by teachers. The
copyshop copies the excerpts, binds then together into a coursepack,
and sells the resulting book to students at a profit. Unlike
its competitors (including both traditional educational publishers
and other copyshops), the copyshop whose activities are here
at issue does not seek permission from the copyright holders
and it does not pay anything to them for the intellectual
property being copied and resold in the coursepacks. (The
three coursepacks in suit may be found in the folder designated
as R. 43.)
The undisputed facts are fully set forth with citations to
the record at pages 2-12 of the Publishers' Brief.
The Publishers' Brief also sets forth (at 12-13) the procedural
history to that point. Thereafter, on February 12, 1996, by
a 2-1 vote, with Judges Ryan and Nelson split and the deciding
vote cast by visiting Judge McKay from the Tenth Circuit,
this Court reversed the judgment below and held (in "the Panel
Opinion") that defendants' copying and sale of the Publishers'
copyrighted material in coursepack books was a fair use as
a matter of law. The panel majority's decision was an unprecedented
departure from sound and well-established copyright principles.
The decision, moreover, by allowing as much as 30% of a copyrighted
work to be copied and sold, threatened immense harm to copyright
holders and to the creation and dissemination of intellectual
property. Why, one must ask, would any teacher assign a book
whose price includes a reward for the intellectual labor that
created it, when instead the teacher could custom-design a
book, taking a third of this text, a third of that one, and
so on, and save the students the price of compensatinq those
responsible for writing and distributing the works being copied?
The Publishers accordingly submitted a Petition For Rehearing
With Suggestion For Rehearing En Banc. The petition
received wide support from amici , including the
Authors Guild and other author groups, the Association of
American University Presses, and the Copyright Clearance Center.
On April 9, 1996, a majority of the active judges of this
Court voted to vacate the Panel Opinion, requested supplemental
briefing, and ordered rehearing.
ARGUMENT
I. THE DEFENDANTS' COPYING AND SALE OF THE PUBLISHERS'
COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL WAS NOT A FAIR USE
The premise of defendants' position is that the fair use
defense permits professors and students to make copies themselves
like those in suit; from that premise they conclude that a
copyshop is also protected by the defense when it systematically
makes such copies and sells them for profit. The panel majority
adopted precisely that tack:
We hold that the Copyright Act does not prohibit
professors and students who may make copies themselves from
using the photoreproduction services of a third party in order
to obtain those same copies at less cost.
(Panel Opinion, 13). Even if it were correct that professors
and students could make copies like those at issue without
permission and we show below (at 28-30) that it is decidedly
not correct that this kind of systematic copying
by anyone would be permitted -- defendants' for-profit business
of selling the copyrighted works of others without permission
from the copyright holders would still constitute infringement.
The language of § 107 itself, the cases decided in the Supreme
Court and in other circuits, and the legislative history all
draw a distinction between purely commercial uses and not-for-profit
uses, and show that the defendants' copying here was not fair
use.
A. Defendants Were Commercially Exploiting The Publishers'
Copyrights.
The language of the Copyright Act itself distinguishes between
the activities of copiers like defendants here and copiers
like professors and students The fair use defense in § 107,
in specifying the factors to be considered in a fair use analysis,
provides that the first factor to be considered is
the purpose and character of the use, including
whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit
educational purposes . . .
17 U.S.C. § 107(1) (emphasis supplied)
The professors who assign the readings in coursepacks and
the students who read them may well have "nonprofit educational
purposes." But those who establish businesses to profit by
selling the coursepack books to students are plainly engaged
in activities "of a commercial nature."
The defendants' approach, and that of the panel majority,
is irreconcilably at odds with the Supreme Court's holding
in Harper & Row Publishers Inc. v. Nation Enters.,
471 U.S. 539 (1985). As Judge Nelson recognized in his dissent
here:
The defendants' use of excerpts from the books at
issue in this case is no' less commercial in nature than was
The Nation Magazine's use of the excerpts from President Ford's
book in Harper & Row. Like the students who purchased
unauthorized coursepacks, the purchasers of The Nation did
not put the contents of the magazine to commercial use --
but that did not stop the Supreme Court from characterizing
the defendant's use of excerpts from the copyrighted book
as "a publication [that] was commercial as opposed to nonprofit
. . . " Harper & Row, 471 U.S. at 562.
(Panel Opinion, 22*)
In Harper & Row, the defendant commercial magazine
argued that it could copy and sell excerpts of plaintiff's
copyrighted material to its readers, who read the material
as news ("news reporting" is specifically listed as a potential
fair use in § 107, as is "multiple copies for classroom use").
The Supreme Court distinguished between the non-commercial
purpose of the buyers and readers of The Nation Magazine and
the profit-seeking purposes of the magazine itself, and held
that the challenged use was commercial. 471 U.S. at 562. See
also American Geophysical Union v. Texaco Inc.,
60 F.3d 913, 922 (2d Cir 1994), stating that "courts will
not sustain a claimed defense of fair use when the secondary
use can fairly be characterized as a form of commercial exploitation,
i.e., when the copier directly and exclusively acquires
conspicuous financial rewards from its use of the copyrighted
material." That, of course, is exactly what occurred here.
The panel majority's holding was also at odds with decisions
in the other circuits, such as Los Angeles News Serv.
v. Tullo, 973 F.2d 791 (9th Cir. 1992), where the defendant
AVRS taped televised news reports and sold brief excerpts
to interested parties. AVRS unsuccessfully tried to defend
its sales of the "video clips" by arguing that the private
use of the clips by its customers was the use that counted:
AVRS maintains its clients used the tapes for "research,
scholarship and private study," and therefore AVRS's use
must be considered fair use in light of Sony Corp.
. . . Even assuming AVRS's representations of its' client
use of the tapes to be accurate, Sony does not
dictate the result for which AVRS argues. . . . Unlike the
claim against the [VCR] distributor in Sony, [plaintiff's]
claim against AVRS is not that AVRS is vicariously liable
for alleged infringements by its customers but that it is
directly liable for its own infringements. The difference
is crucial: Under Sony, a VTR owner who tapes a copyrighted
movie broadcast over a public television station to watch
at home at a later time is protected by the fair use doctrine
but a VTR owner who tapes the movie to sell copies to others
without the copyright owner's consent is subject to a range
of civil and criminal sanctions.
* * *
[AVRs's] purposes are "unabashedly commercial." . . . This
factor weighs against [it].
973 F.2d at 797 (citations omitted) (emphasis supplied);
see also, e.g., Pacific & Southern Co. v. Duncan,
744 F.2d 1490, 1496 (11th Cir. 1984), cert denied,
471 U.S. 1004 (1985) ("TV News Clips copies and distributes
the broadcast for unabashedly commercial reasons despite the
fact that its customers buy the tapes for personal use");
Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Frena, 839 F. Supp.
1552, 1558 (M.D. Fla. 1993) ("One who distributes copyrighted
material for profit is engaged in a commercial use even if
the customers supplied with such material themselves use it
for personal use"); 3 Nimmer Copyright § 13.05(A)
at 13-170 (same); Patry, Fair Use In Copyright Law,
at 420 n.34 ("The courts have also properly rejected attempts
by for-profit users to stand in the shoes of their customers
making nonprofit or noncommercial uses"); and other authorities
cited in the Publishers' Brief, 24-28.[FN 1]
Basic Books Inc. v. Kinko's Graphics Corp., 758
F. Supp. 1522 (S.D.N.Y. 1991), a case with facts identical
to those here, a copyshop chain that sold coursepacks unsuccessfully
argued that its use was a fair use because its customers used
coursepacks for educational purposes:
The use of the Kinko's packets, in the hands of
the students, was no doubt educational. However, the use in
the hands of Kinko's employees is commercial Kinko's claims
that its copying was educational and, therefore, qualifies
as a fair use. . . . The extent of [Kinko's] insistence that
theirs are educational concerns and not profitmaking ones
boggles the mind.
Kinko's, 758 F. Supp. at 1531-32.
Defendants have tried to treat Kinko's as an aberrational
decision, but as shown above the court's approach in Kinko's
was consistent with that of the Supreme Court and other courts.
Indeed, as far back as the seminal fair use case of Folsom
v. Marsh, 9 F. Cas. 342, 344 (C.C.D. Mass. 1841), Justice
Story held that defendant's abridgement and excerpting of
the biography of George Washington was copyright infringement,
notwithstanding that the ruling would necessarily "interfere,
in some measure, with the very meritorious labors of the defendants,
in their great undertaking of a series of works adapted to
school libraries." 9 F Cas. at 349. Justice Story analyzed
the defendant's use, not the ultimate use of the pupils at
the school library, and accordingly ordered the defendant
to account to the plaintiff for the profits it earned by selling
the copyrighted material. 9 F. Cas. at 349.
Finally, the 1976 Report of the House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary on Copyright Law Revision, part
of the legislative history of the Copyright Act, specifically
states that:
It would not be possible for a non-profit institution,
by means of contractual arrangements with a commercial copying
enterprise, to authorize the enterprise to carry out copying
and distribution functions that would be exempt if conducted
by the non-profit institution itself.
See H.R. Rep. No. 1476, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. at
74 (1976).
The harmful nature of defendants' commercial infringements
is exacerbated here because MDS's use of the Publishers' copyrighted
works resulted in sales of the copies in the same market as
in which the Publishers sell. When a commercial use is competitive
in this manner, the "commerciality" is even "more harmful
to the copyright holder" and the first factor in § 107 cuts
even more strongly against the defendant. See, e.g.,
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 114 S. Ct. 1164, 1171
(19?4) ("central purpose" of first factor inquiry "is to see
. . . whether the new work merely 'supersedes the objects'
of the original"); Bridge Publications Inc. v. Vien,
827 F. Supp. 629, 635 (S.D. Cal. 1993) (no fair use when defendant
seller of educational materials used plaintiffs' work "for
the same intrinsic purpose as plaintiffs"); Patry, Fair
Use in Copyright Law at 425 (in performing "intrinsic
purpose" analysis courts should examine whether "the defendant
reproduce[d] the copyright owner's expression for the purpose
of marketing the precise form of that expression"); see
also authorities cited in the Publishers' Brief, 24-25.
Indeed, at deposition, when asked why he had placed a copyright
symbol on material that he wrote, defendant Smith acknowledged
that it was because "it would be improper for a competitor
to use a work belonging to you in the same market." (R. 46
[Smith Deposition, 206~23 to 207:7].)
The panel majority avoided the necessary conclusion that
defendants' exploitation of the Publishers' copyrighted works
is commercial with the surprising conclusion that it is not
an exploitation to begin with. The panel majority held that
"MDS does not 'exploit' copyrighted material within the meaning
of [Harper & Row] because its fee does not turn on
the content of the materials, copyrighted or not, that it
copies." (Panel Opinion, l3.)[FN 2]
This was a clear misreading. The reason that defendants are
able to charge anything at all is because they are selling
valuable intellectual property. That defendants do not charge
"extra" for copyrighted pages is irrelevant. E.g.,
Macmillan Co. v. King, 223 F. 862 (D. Mass. 1914),
where the defendant teacher created memoranda-summaries of
portions of plaintiff's book for use in tutoring sessions.
The teacher argued that his use was fair because, among other
reasons, "his regular fees for instruction are fixed without
regard to the use of the memoranda, and are the same whether
the memoranda are used or not." 223 F. at 863. The teacher
was held an infringer despite this argument. Id.
at 866.
Similarly, in Harper & Row, the price of an issue
of The Nation did not turn on whether the issue included copyrighted
works of others. The Nation was exploiting the Ford memoirs
whether or not it charged more for the issue that included
them. 471 U.S. at 562-63. Earning profits by selling the copyrighted
works of others is plainly an "exploitation" of those works,
regardless of the pricing mechanism adopted by the seller
The panel majority's misunderstanding of Harper & Row
is akin to defendants' argument that MDS, unlike the Publishers,
is a mere "printer," and "Publishers use the work; printers
do not." (See Defendants' Brief, 24-25.) The fundamental
infirmity in this position is that it necessarily posits that
those who invest the most intellectual effort into
works that incorporate prior copyrighted material -- and thereby
fulfill the social goal of advancing learning by building
on what came before in new works -- are to be afforded the
least amount of fair use protection. There is no
support for such a proposition. Printers, moreover, are undoubtedly
liable for their "mere" reproduction of copyrighted works.
See, e.g., Respect Inc. v. Fremgen, 36 U.S.P.Q.2d
1278 (N.D. Ill. 1995) (printer liable for unauthorized act
of reproduction); 3 Nimmer Copyright § l2.04[A][2]
(printer liable for infringement with respect to "acts of
printing"); § 8.02[C] (printer liable for acts of copying
even when copies are not sold).
The only authority that defendants cite in support of their
"mere printer" argument is the plainly irrelevant decision
in First Comics. Inc. v. World Color Press, Inc.,
884 F.2d 1033 (7th Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 493
U.S. 1075 (1990). (Defendants' Brief, 25.) In First Comics,
a comic book publisher sued its printer for price discrimination.
The Court stated that it was illegal to price-discriminate
only in sales of goods, not in sales of services, and concluded
that because the defendant printer was selling a service,
there could be no cognizable claim of price discrimination.
In the course of setting forth that conclusion, the Court
said:
[A]t the printing stage the comic books lack real
value to any entity other than [plaintiff publisher] [Defendant
printer] cannot sell the finished comic books to any other
buyer since [plaintiff] holds the copyright. . .
884 F.2d at 1037 (emphasis supplied) Plainly, nothing in the
case aids defendants' fair use arguments.
In conclusion, if MDS can freely copy and re-sell works simply
because they copy inexpensively and the copies will be used
in the classroom, then the Publishers, all in the business
of selling educationally useful works that can be used in
the classroom (like the six books in suit that were used in
the classroom), should be able to freely copy from each other
as well. For that matter, why would plaintiff Princeton University
Press -- a not for profit corporation with the express mission
of promoting scholarship and learning -- ever pay royalties
to anyone? As the Supreme Court has noted, that state of affairs
would soon eviscerate the Copyright Law:
[A]s one commentator has noted: "If every volume
that was in the public interest could be pirated away by a
competing publisher . . . the public [soon] would have nothing
worth reading."
Harper & Row, 471 U.S at 559 (1985)
That the works in which the Publishers hold copyrights can
have educational purposes and so are assigned by professors
to students; that students are willing to pay money for copies
of the assigned materials; that defendants are able to build
a profitable business on meeting the demands of the market
-- under the unanimous authorities discussed above and in
the Publishers' Brief, these facts establish that defendants'
copying and selling is commercial and therefore disfavored.
B. The Legislative History Of The Copyright Act Should Be
Considered And It Specifically Disfavors Copying Like
That In Suit
The panel majority's conclusion (Panel Opinion, 10) that
consideration of any legislative history is inappropriate
because the four factors set forth in § 107 of the Copyright
Act are "unambiguous" is foreclosed by controlling cases.[FN 3] The Supreme Court has repeatedly consulted the legislative
history of the fair use provision of the Copyright Act, as
have other circuits. Harper & Row, 471 U.S. at 549-53;
Acuff-Rose Music, 114 S Ct. at 1170; Sony Corp.
v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 447, 450-
51 (1984); see also Texaco, 60 F.3d at 919
n.5 (Classroom Guidelines are "persuasive authority marking
out certain minimum standards for educational fair uses");
Marcus v. Rowley, 695 F.2d 1171, 1178 (9th Cir. 1983).
The only authority cited by the panel majority for its contrary
conclusion was a non-copyright case cited by the defendants
(Defendants' Reply Brief, 13), that goes no further than to
recite the familiar rule that "unambiguous" statutory language
cannot "be expanded or contracted" with legislative history.
West Virginia Univ. Hosps. Inc. v. Casey, 499 U.S
83, 98-99 (1991). However, use of legislative history in the
fair use context does not expand or contract the statutory
language but instead elucidates the meaning and scope of the
generalities of the statute.
Not only has the Supreme Court relied on legislative history;
it has expressly justified doing so, approvingly citing the
view expressed by the former Register of Copyrights that,
because the Copyright Act represents a series of careful compromises
by affected groups, consultation of the legislative history
is particularly appropriate.[FN 4]
During the deliberations that led to the enactment of § 107
of the 1976 Copyright Act, members of Congress requested representatives
of the educational and publishing communities to meet and
to develop guidelines that would express the extent to which
copying small amounts for educational purposes would be fair
use and thus not copyright infringement. In the meetings that
followed "most of the discussion of section 107 . . . centered
around questions of classroom reproduction, particularly photocopying."
H.R. Rep. No. 1476, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. at 66 n.27 (1976).
The result of those discussions was a series of guidelines
relating to classroom photocopying called the "Agreement On
Guidelines For Classroom Copying In Not-For-Profit Educational
Institutions," contained in H.R. Rep. No. 1476, 94th Cong.,
2d Sess. (1976), known as the "Classroom Guidelines." The
Classroom Guidelines may be found within the full 1976 House
Report reprinted in volume 5, at Appendix 4, of Professor
Nimmer's treatise (see pages 4-28 through 4-31 of
Nimmer). They may also be found in the CCH Copyright Law Reporter,
volume 1, at ¶ 15,816 (also reproducing the full 1976 House
Report)
According to both the House and Conference Reports where
the Classroom Guidelines appear, they represent Congress's
view on educational fair use. H.R. Rep. No. 1476, 94th Cong.,
2d Sess. at 72 (1976) ("The [House] Committee believes the
guidelines are a reasonable interpretation of the minimum
standards of fair use"); H.R. Cont. Rep. No. 1733, 94th Cong.1
2d Sess. at 70 (1976) ("The [House and Senate] conferees accept
as part of their understanding of fair use the Guidelines");
see also, e.g., Texaco, 60 F.3d at 919 n.5
(Classroom Guidelines are "persuasive authority marking out
certain minimum standards for educational fair uses"); Marcus
v. Rowley, 695 F.2d at 1178 (Classroom Guidelines "represent
the Congressional Committees' view of what constitutes fair
use [and], while they are not controlling on the court, they
are instructive on the issue of fair use in this [classroom
copying] case"); Encyclopedia Britannica Educ. Corp. v.
Crooks, 542 F. Supp. 1156, 1175 (W.D.N.Y. 1982) ("the
Congressional Reports on the 1976 Copyright Legislation are
helpful in outlining acceptable fair use limits in educational
settjngs")
The Classroom Guidelines offer a "safe harbor" for copying
for educational purposes provided that:
- It is not-for-profit copying;
- The excerpts copied are "not more than l,000 words ";
- "The inspiration and decision to use the work and the
moment of its use for maximum teaching effectiveness are
so close in time that it would be unreasonable to expect
a timely reply to a request for permission;"
- Not more than nine instances of multiple copying otherwise
within the "safe harbor" are undertaken for any course in
any given semester; and
- The students are charged no more than the actual cost
of copying.
H.R. Rep. No. 1476 at 68-7l.
The copying in this case is well outside the Classroom Guidelines.
It was done for profit. Each excerpt is far longer than the
1,000 words provided in the Guidelines (the shortest excerpt
exceeds 8,000 words). The professors decided to assign the
coursepacks in advance, before the start of the semester (when
there was time to seek permission) and there were many more
than nine works copied in each coursepack. MDS, to make its
profit, charged students more than its actual cost.
In addition, and perhaps most importantly, the Classroom
Guidelines, in accordance with repeated condemnation of anthologizing
in the reports of the relevant congressional' committees involved
in the legislative process, specifically "prohibi[t] . . .
[c)opying used to create . . . anthologies, compilations,
or collective works." H.R. Rep. No. 1476 at 69. In this regard,
the Classroom Guidelines recognize that when the copying by
educators leads to the creation and sale of complete books,
even if those books are not attractively bound, the likelihood
of adverse impact on the legitimate business interest of publishers
is likely to be all the greater. Having departed from the
approach of the Supreme Court and other courts by categorically
ruling out any consultation of legislative history, the majority
failed even to mention, much less to be guided by, consistent
and repeated statements throughout the lengthy revision process,
that unauthorized educational anthologies containing excerpts
from copyrighted works are unlikely to be fair use because
of the substantial harm they pose to the incentives of copyright
law. (See Publishers' Petition For Rehearing, 14-15.)
C. The Copying In Suit Was Qualitatively And Quantitatively
Significant.
The publishers have previously demonstrated that copying
far less extensive than that in suit has been held to be impermissible.
(Publishers' Brief, 29-31.)
While the third fair use factor (amount of copying) is not
to be applied mechanically, and necessarily relates to the
fourth factor (market harm) as well, there is surely no basis
for defendants' argument that copying of from 5% to 30% of
a book was permissible in this case as long as the copied
amount was not a substitute for a sale of the full book itself.
The panel majority accepted this argument, noting that "Each
of the professors who delivered the materials at issue to
MDS signed a statement that he would not otherwise have assigned
the copyrighted work to the class." (Panel Opinion, 15-16).
An affidavit that a customer of the copier would not have
purchased an entire work at the copyright owner1s lawfully
set price establishes no defense to infringement through the
copying of an excerpt. For example, in Macmillan v. King,
223 F. 862 (D. Mass. 1914), discussed above at page 9, the
plaintiff's textbook was already assigned to the class, and
as a result, the court found that "[t]he evidence can hardly
be said to show that the infringing outlines have injured
the sale of the book. " Id. at 867. Nonetheless,
the court held that defendant's creation of summaries of parts
of the book, even when used solely in conjunction with the
already-purchased. book, was not a fair use:
It is true that the whole book has not been thus
dealt with, but the copyright protects every substantial component
part of the book, as well as the whole.
Id. at 866.
Moreover, notwithstanding defendants' argument here, adopted
by the panel majority, that one may copy large portions of
copyrighted works so long as the copying is not from the "heart"
of the work, and that all of the copying here was "just those
portions that the professor deemed instructive for his particular
classroom purposes" (see Panel Opinion, 15-16), there
is simply no requirement, anywhere, that copying must involve
the "heart" of a work in order to be infringement. In Harper
& Row, for example, a case that did involve the unauthorized
taking of the "heart" of President Ford's memoirs, the Court
also stated that the importance of an excerpt that was photocopied
verbatim, as were the excerpts here, should be measured in
terms of the commercial usefulness of such verbatim copying
to the defendant1s product:
[T]he fact that a substantial portion of the infringing
work was copied verbatim is evidence of the qualitative value
of the copied material, both to the originator and to the
plagiarist who seeks to profit from marketing someone elseVs
copyrighted expression.
471 U.S. at 564-65. Here, defendants' coursepacks are educationally
useful because they contain verbatim excerpts of educationally
useful works published by the Publishers. Otherwise, no student
would have bought the coursepacks and defendants would not
have been able to "profit from marketing someone else's copyrighted
expression," as occurred in Harper & Row.
The panel majority also held that the excerpts in suit were
not qualitatively significant because they were limited to
material that was of use to the professors in teaching specific
classes. That approach was rejected in Folsom v. Marsh:
It is said, that the defendant has selected
only such materials, as suited his own limited purpose as
a biographer. That is, doubtless true; and he has produced
an exceedingly valuable book. . . . It is certainly not
necessary, to constitute an invasion of copyright, that the
whole of a work should be copied, or even a large portion
of it, in form or substance. If so much is taken, that
the value of the original is sensibly diminished, or the labors
of the original author are substantially to an injurious extent
appropriated by another, that is sufficient, in point of law,
to constitute a piracy pro tanto. The entirety of
the copyright is the property of the author; and it is no
defence, that another person has appropriated a part, and
not the whole, of any property.
9 F Cas. at 348 (emphasis Supplied).
In any event, it is undisputed that it can be very difficult
in the context of educationally useful works to find a "heart"
of the work, because different teachers will want to take
different excerpts for different classes. Indeed, defendants
argue that "there was no 'heart' of the educational works"
that they copied and that "[o]ne student testified that he
has seen one work excerpted four different ways for four different
classes." (Defendants' Brief, at 29.) This further confirms
that an educationally useful work has as many "hearts" as
there are professors willing to assign excerpts from it. If
each professor across the country assigned the parts of a
work that are most relevant to his or her class, there would
soon be no body, much less a "heart," left for anybody to
take. As Justice Story recognized in Folsom v. Marsh:
[I]f the defendants may take three hundred and nineteen
letters, included in the plaintiffs' copyright, and exclusively
belonging to them, there is no reason why another bookseller
may not take [an]other five hundred other letters, and a third,
one thousand letters, and so on, and thereby the plaintiffs'
copyright be totally destroyed.
9 F. Cas. at 348. It is, of course, the economic value of
excerpts from socially useful materials like George Washington's
letters and the Publishers' educational works here at issue
that makes them so attractive to copyists like defendants
in the first instance, and that makes them so susceptible
of being destroyed through countless copies, across the country,
of "those portions that the professor deemed instructive for
his particular classroom purposes."
D. The Copying In Suit Injured The Publishers' Actual And
Potential Markets.
Sony held that market harm to copyright holders
should be presumed when the defendants' use is commercial.
464 U.S. at 450. In Acuff-Rose Music, 114 S. Ct.
at 1l77, the Court did not presume harm because "[n]o 'presumption'
or inference of market harm that might find support in Sony
is applicable to a case involving something beyond mere
duplication for commercial purposes." (emphasis added).
If any case involves no more than "mere duplication for commercial
purposes," it is this one. MDS's sales should therefore be
presumed to cause economic harm to the Publishers.
But the Publishers here did not rest on the Sony
presumption. Instead, they submitted uncontroverted evidence
of the existence of their permissions departments that regularly
process and respond to requests for permission and receive
income by licensing uses exactly like those in suit. (Publishers'
Brief, 4-5.) The loss of such licensing revenues is consistently
recognized as a legally cognizable form of market harm. The
majority had to disregard myriad licensing cases in order
to hold otherwise. (See Publishers' Brief, 32-36.)
The defendants argued, and the panel majority agreed, that
the Publishers' uncontroverted evidence of lost permission
fees should be disregarded on the grounds of "circularity:"
Evidence of lost permission fees does not bear on
market effect. The right to permission fees is precisely what
is at issue here. It is circular to argue that a use is unfair,
and a fee therefore is required, on the basis that a fee is
otherwise required.
(Panel Opinion, 18.) The majority provided no citations for
this conclusion. The defendants cited one authority in support
of the circularity argument, footnote 19 in Williams &
Wilkins Co. v. United States, 487 F.2d 1345 (Ct. Cl.
1973), aff'd an equally divided Court, 420 U.S. 376
(1975) (Defendants' Brief, 31.)
Professor Nimmer's treatise, which the Supreme Court has
repeatedly cited with approval, calls the Court of Claims'
holding in Williams & Wilkins "seriously in error,
with implications that might well justify its description
by one of the dissenting judges as 'the Dred Scott decision
of copyright law.'" 3 Nimmer Copyright § l3.O5[E],
at 13-104 (citation omitted). The implications of Williams
& Wilkins are indeed devastating: for example, there
is no reason the circularity argument would not similarly
apply when an infringer sells complete copies of entire books.
If MDS made multiple copies of a full book and sold them to
students who used them in course work, and if the copyright
holders challenged those sales on the grounds that they replaced
sales of the copyrighted books, MDS would argue that the copyright
holders' claims were circular because the copyright holders'
entitlement to the sales in question would only be established
if MDS's copying of the entire book was not a fair use.
Williams & Wilkins, decided before the 1976 Copyright
Act, is also irreconcilable with the language of § 107 itself,
which specifically directs the courts to consider "the effect
of the use upon the potential market for or value
of a copyrighted work." That "potential market" language would
be rendered meaningless if the circularity argument were correct
-- All new markets for copyrighted works would be developed
by infringers, who would say that they are having no impact
on existing markets and that considerations of the impact
on the potential market is irrelevant because it is circular.
Professor Patry, rejecting such circular reasoning, states,
A preferable approach is to give effect to the plain
meaning of the term "potential" to include not only uses currently
being exploited, but also uses that the copyright owner might
have an interest in exploiting in the future. If the copyright
owner is required to demonstrate that such an interest already
exists, many potential sources of income would be excluded
from the analysis.
Patry, Fair Use In Copyright Law, p. 558.
The circularity argument, moreover, was implicitly rejected
by the Supreme Court in Stewart v. Abend and Harper
& Row. In both cases, theSupreme Court found fourth factor
market harm because the copyright holder lost the royalty
it would have charged for a use like defendants' The concept
that the lost royalty income should be disregarded was not
even addressed by the Supreme Court in those cases.
These Supreme Court authorities are entirely irreconcilable
with the panel decision here refusing to consider the Publishers'
lost royalties, and require the opposite result from that
reached by the panel majority.
The correct view is that when there is an existing functioning
market that defendants' infringements interfere with, fourth
factor market harm should be found. In the Texaco
case, the Second Circuit So held:
Texaco is correct, at least as a general matter, when it
contends that it is not always appropriate for a court to
be swayed on the fourth factor by the effects on potential
licensing revenues. Only an impact on potential licensing
revenues for traditional, reasonable, or likely to be developed
markets should be legally cognizable when evaluating a secondary
use's "effect upon the potential market for or value of
the copyrighted work.>/P>
* * *
[S]ince there currently exists a viable market for licensing
these rights for individual journal articles, it is appropriate
that potential licensing revenues for photocopying be considered
in a fair use analysis.
60 F.3d at 930.
The dispositive fact here is that there is a longstanding
and functioning market in which fees are paid to copy excerpts
by numerous copy shops (including defendants' competitors
in Ann Arbor), college bookstores, traditional educational
publishers, and others. (In Williams & Wilkins, which
involved copying by a nonprof it government research library,
there was no functioning market for photocopy licenses. 487
F.2d at 1345, 1360.) The Publishers' works have value in this
market and defendants harm that value by taking the material
without paying the fee the market sets.[FN
5]
The uncontroverted evidence demonstrates that each plaintiff
has a department that regularly processes and passes upon
permission requests. (R. 42 [Van Rheinberg Declaration, ¶[
2]; R. 42 [Fisher Declaration, ¶ 2]; R. 42 [Mullen Declaration,
¶ 2].) Defendants do not dispute the existence of the departments;
in fact, they knew about those departments and did business
with them before this action started and before the decision
in Kinko's was issued. (R. 46 [Smith deposition 176:5
to 181:11; 188:8 to 191:6; 196:22 to 199:17].)
In the Kinko's case, decided in 1991, the eight
plaintiff- publishers established that they had in place permissions
departments that responded to requests to copy excerpts coursepacks
and captured the income from such licensing. See, e.g.,
758 F. Supp. at 1529 n.4 ("Plaintiffs derive a significant
part of their income from textbook sales and permissions
fees"); see also 758 F. Supp. at 1534.
Indeed, any contention that charging permission fees to copy
excerpts is a new practice is further belied by several suits
in the early 1980's where publishers -- including, again,
two of the plaintiffs here -- brought enforcement actions
against coursepack makers like MDS, in order to protect their
economically valuable permissions licenses These cases were
resolved by consent decrees that adopted the standards of
the Classroom Guidelines and thus ensured that the plaintiffs
would continue to be compensated for copying like that in
suit. See Basic Books. Inc. v. Gnomon Corp.,
1980 Copyright L Dec. ¶ 25,145 (D. Conn. 1980) (Princeton
University Press, plaintiff); Addison-Wesley Publishing
Co. v. New York Univ., 1983 Copyright L. Dec. ¶ 25,544
(S.D.N.Y. 1983) (Macmillan Inc.'s predecessor, plaintiff);
Harper & Row Publishers Inc. v. Tyco Copy Serv., Inc.,
1981 Copyright L. Dec ¶ 25,230 (D. Conn. 1981); see also R.
61 Exhibit G, pp. 1344-45, submitted by defendants (uncontroverted
deposition testimony from St. Martin's Press establishing
existence of its classroom permissions business at least as
far back as fifteen years ago).
The Congress recognized the importance of this market 30
years ago. In the 1966 House Report it was noted that:
education is the textbook publishers' only market,
and . . . many authors receive their main income from
licensing reprints in anthologies and textbooks; if an
unlimited number of teachers could prepare and reproduce their
own anthologies, the cumulative effect would be disastrous.
H.R. Rep. No. 2237, 89th Cong., 2d Sess. at 62 (1966) (emphasis
supplied). The evidence of an existing market that has existed
for years -- the very type of market envisioned by the Texaco
court -- is overwhelming.
Defendants also argue that the use of excerpts in coursepacks
stimulates increased book sales. (Defendants' Brief1 31.)
Even if this were somehow true, it would make no difference.
The use in Stewart v. Abend, for example, would also
increase interest in and sales of plaintiff `s work but was
nonetheless found unfair. 495 U.S. at 237. The owner of a
copyright in a story is entitled to both the royalty from
a motion picture producer and the increased sales of the story.
Similarly, Harper & Row was entitled to royalties from the
publication of an excerpt and the increased sales of President
Ford's memoirs that publication of the excerpt might stimulate.
See also Acuff-Rose Music, 114 S. Ct. at
1177 n.21 (use of song that enjoys increased sales via unauthorized
inclusion in film is not fair use).
The panel majority also concluded that there had been no
harm shown to "the potential market for derivative works,
such as published anthologies." (Panel Opinion, 18;
emphasis in original.) This portion of the panel majority's
opinion is not clear, but it seems that the majority considered
defendants' anthologies not to be "published", and that this
had significance for purposes of fair use analysis. The published
anthologies the majority would seem to have in mind consist
of printed pages perfect bound in soft or hard covers; the
defendants' anthologies consist of photocopied pages that
are spiral bound in a less attractive format. The rights of
the copyright holder surely do not turn on such differences.
The coursepack in suit entitled "History of the Vietnam Era"
(R. 43, No. 35) contains an excerpt from St. Martin's Press's
Vietnam war anthology entitled Light At The End Of The
Tunnel: A Vietnam War Anthology (at p. 259). Specifically,
MDS copied The Tet Offensive by Larry Berman, which
had been included in the St. Martin's Press anthology with
permission of the copyright holder. (See id. at p
261).
Under the majority's approach, St Martin's Press was required
to obtain permission when it published its anthology including
Larry Berman's work because it was a "published" anthology.
MDS, however, could copy the same excerpt without
seeking permission because the MDS anthology is somehow different.
Such an outcome is not Sustainable.
The majority's reference to "derivative works" in this context
was also misplaced "Derivative work" has a technical definition
in § 101 of the Copyright Act; the majority apparently has
concluded that it does not extend to defendants' anthologies.
This would make no difference. The statutory direction in
§ 107 to consider the impact on the markets for the copyrighted
work makes no mention of derivative works and plainly extends
to all markets for the copyrighted work. Our undisputed
showing that there is a market in which copyshops and others
pay license fees to include excerpts from copyrighted works
in coursepacks, and that defendants are depriving the Publishers
of income from that market, therefore establishes harmful
impact regardless of whether defendants' coursepacks are derivative
works.
The cases confirm the irrelevance of whether a coursepack
is a derivative work. They recognize that copyright holders
earn licensing income from authorizing copying which would
not result in the creation of derivative works, and they find
fourth factor market harm for fair use purposes when such
licensing income is lost. See, e.g., Texaco
(photocopying); Los Angeles Times v. Tullo (videotaping);
Wolff v. Institute of Elec. & Electronics Engineers, Inc.,
768 F. Supp. 66, 69 (S.D.N.Y. 1991) (photographs); Peer
Int'l Corp. v. Pausa Records, Inc., 909 F.2d 1332, 1336
(9th Cir. 1990) (music), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1109
(1991); see also H.R. Rep. No. 2237, 89th Cong., 2d Sess.
at 62 (1966) (licensing of reprints in classroom anthologies).
E. There Is No Exemption For Educational Copying.
Finally, we note our belief that this case does not require
a decision about what professors and students may or may not
do. As the Kinko's court said: "Expressly, the decision
of this court does not consider copying performed by students,
libraries, nor on-campus copy-shops, whether conducted for
profit or not." 758 F. Supp. at 1537 n.13.
Here, however, the panel majority assumed as a central basis
for its holding that the copying in suit would be exempt from
liability if it had been conducted by professors and students.
This is not correct.
It is certainly the case that a professor or student -- like
anyone else -- may on an isolated occasion copy a small amount
of material and successfully assert fair use. But the systematic
copying and distribution of anthologies comprised of substantial
excerpts from copyrighted materials is not a fair use, regardless
of who performs it.
While the commercial nature of defendants' use here weighs
heavily against them, it is not necessary for a finding of
infringement. "The mere fact that a use is educational and
not for profit does not insulate it from a finding of infringement.
. . . Acuff-Rose Music, 114 5. Ct. at 1174 (1994);
see also, e.g., Sony, 464 U.S. at 450 ("Even
copying for noncommercial purposes may impair the copyright
holder's ability to obtain the rewards that Congress intended
him to have"); Harper & Row, 471 U.S. at 561 (there
are no "presumptive categories" of fair use); Marcus v.
Rowley, 695 F.2d at 1175 ("a finding of a nonprofit educational
purpose does not automatically compel a finding of fair use").
We note first, that the copying in suit, even if performed
by a nonprofit student or educator, is well outside the scope
of the Classroom Guidelines, and indeed is stated by them
to be "prohibited" (because "anthologizing" is "prohibited").
(See above at 15- l6.)
The courts have, on at least four prior occasions, held that
verbatim, substantial, copying of course materials for distribution
to students is a copyright infringement and not fair use,
even in the absence of a profit motive. For cases where the
copying was no more harmful to the copyright holder than that
here, see Marcus v. Rowley, 695 F.2d at
1175 (summary judgment granted against defendant teacher who
copied eleven pages from another teacher's home economics
instructional book; copying for same purpose as original 1sweighs
against fair use"); Wihtol v. Crow, 309 F.2d 777
(8th Cir. 1962) (no fair use where defendant teacher arranged
plaintiff's original musical composition for school choirs
and distributed copies); Macmillan Co. v. King, 223
F. 862 (D. Mass. 1914) (professor who tutored students infringed
plaintiff's work by providing students with memoranda quoting
and paraphrasing sections of plaintiff's work); see also
Encyclopedia Britannica Educ. Corp. v. Crooks, 542
F. Supp. 1156 (W.D.N.Y. 1982) (denying fair use defense asserted
by non-profit educational consortium that copied plaintiff's
educational films for use in schools); See Publishers'
Brief, 18.
Among the rewards Congress assured to copyright holders is
the ability to sell to their intended market, including the
ability to earn license fees for the reproduction of substantial
excerpts, even if the reproduction is done by not-for-profit
educational copiers. Copying like defendants' here would be
infringing regardless of by whom it was conducted. However,
the issue of professor and student copying is not before the
Court.
II. DEFENDANTS' INFRINGEMENTS WERE WILLFUL
In view of the district court1s decision to award statutory
damages in the "standard" range under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(l)
(the award was $5,000 per work infringed, well within the
standard available damages of from $500 to $20,000 per work
infringed), rather than the enhanced damages available for
willful infringements (up to $100,000 per work infringed),
it is doubtful if defendants have standing to appeal the district
court's willfulness finding. Assuming arguendo, however,
that the court's willfulness finding has some practical consequence
here, it was plainly correct.
The facts demonstrating detendants' willfulness are set forth
in the Publishers' Brief at 9-12. Most significantly, after
Kinko's held that copying like defendants' was infringing,
defendant Smith consulted a lawyer, who said that defendants'
business of selling coursepacks without the copyright holders'
permission was a "very risky proposition," that Smith could
well be sued, and that he, like other copyshop owners, should
"heed Kinko's warning." (Publishers' Brief, 10.)
Smith decided to ignore his lawyer's advice. He instead began
a massive advertising campaign boasting that his disregard
of the Kinko's decision enabled him to undercharge his competitors,
other copyshops that obeyed the law. (Publishers' Brief, 11.)
After this litigation began, the Publishers sought and obtained
a preliminary injunction; Judge Hackett addressed Smith directly
in the Courtroom and told him that it was infringement to
build his business on selling the property of others His response
was to vow publicly to continue to infringe until coerced
into stopping. He did indeed continue his practice as to the
works of all publishers except the three plaintiffs directly
protected by the injunction. (Publishers' Brief, 11-12.)
Smith's claim to have a subjectively sincere belief that
his conduct is not infringing makes no difference. The undisputed
facts of his refusal to accept his lawyer's advice to the
contrary, and his inability to heed the contrary conclusion
of the district judge, demonstrate the willfulness of his
conduct. Smith's and MDS's is a knowing, and consistently
defiant, course of conduct.
The cases discussed at pages 45-47 of the Publishers' Brief
demonstrate that the defendants are willful infringers as
a matter of law. There is no requirement that a defendant
have subjective knowledge that he is infringing. See,
e.g., Knitwaves, Inc. v. Lollytogs Ltd., 71
F.3d 996, 1010 (2d Cir. 1995) ("To show willfulness, Knitwaves
was not required to prove Lollytogs' actual knowledge that
it was infringing"); see also United States v.
Steerwell Leisure Corp., 598 F. Supp. 171 (W.D.N.Y. 1984),
where the Court found the defendants to be willful infringers,
holding:
A defendant is on sufficient notice [that he may
be a willful copyright infringer] as long as the law is clear
enough so that he is informed that the course of conduct he
contemplates may fall perilously close to the line which
separates what is legal from that which is not.
598 F. Supp. at 173 (emphasis supplied) (material in brackets
added). Steerwell was a criminal case. If the standard
articulated there is enough to support a finding of criminal
willfulness, it is certainly enough to establish willfulness
here.
There is no factual issue here about Smith's state of mind;
however unlikely it may be, for purposes of their summary
judgment motion below the Publishers took as true his claim
that he studied copyright law closely and did not have a subjective
belief that he was violating it. The issue is the objective
reasonableness of those beliefs. Once Smith had read Kinko's,
had been advised by his lawyer, and heard the district judge,
he could not reasonably have held-such a belief, and yet he
continued to infringe.
CONCLUSION
For all the foregoing reasons, the decision of the district
court should be upheld.
Dated: May 17, 1996
|
Respectfully submitted, |
|
|
|
__________________________________________ |
| James E. Stewart |
Ronald S. Rauchberg |
| J. Michael Huget |
Jon A. Baumgarten |
| Butzel Long, P. C. |
Charles S. Sims |
|
Herman L. Goldsmith |
|
Proskauer Rose Goetz |
|
& Mendelsohn LLP |
Footnotes
Footnote 1
Defendants have argued (Reply Brief, 5) that "in those cases,
the copier conceived of a product for sale to the public and
decided what to copy." This is not correct. In the video clip
cases (e.g., Tullo and Pacific & Southern,
above), it is the customers who decide what copied material
is of interest to them and should be copied and sold to them.
Additionally, there is no doubt that defendants here "conceived
of a product for sale" as surely as did, for example, the
defendants in Tullo and Pacific & Southern.
And defendants here actively advertised those products in
order to stimulate demand for them. (Publishers' Brief, 4;
10-11.) Finally, there is no reason to make the identity of
who decides what to copy significant in a fair use analysis.
Footnote 2
The three coursepacks at issue here are almost entirely composed
of material from published books and periodicals, which no
doubt are copyrighted. (See R. 43, Nos. 33, 34 and 35, the
coursepacks in suit, each of which has a table of contents
setting forth the material copied therein.)
Footnote 3
Although defendants argue on the one hand that the four fair
use factors are "unambiguous," they also argue, in this same
appeal, that "the four factors are nearly indeterminate."
(Defendants' Brief, 42.)
Footnote 4
See Stewart v Abend, 495 U.S. 207, 225 (1990),
citing Ringer, First Thoughts on the Copyright Act of 1976,
13 Copyright 187, 188-89 (1977). With respect to photocopying
and fair use, that article observed that the fair use defense
in § 107 "must be read with the exhaustive legislative reports,
fleshing out the probable application of the 'fair use' doctrine
in classroom situations," citing reports the Publishers cite
here.
Footnote 5
That students are willing to spend money on coursepacks is
irrefutable evidence that the material in the coursepacks
has economic value. The panel majority found relevant the
fact that students could buy copyrighted excerpts from MDS
for less money than from other sources, including the university
copy machines. (Panel Opinion, 14.) As Judge Nelson observed,
however, the only relevance of the low prices of a "black
market" copyshop like MDS is not that it can beat the university
machines, but that it can beat its competitors, who also sell
to students but obey the law and pay required fees. (Panel
Opinion, 26.) Defendants submitted no evidence that suggested
that students are unwilling or unable to pay the costs of
coursepacks that come from typical copyshops that obtain permission
and pay royalties. If MDS were to obtain permission like its
competitors, and its prices were like everyone else's, there
is no reason to believe that students would stop buying coursepacks
or that their education would be harmed.
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I, HERMAN L. GOLDSMITH, certify that on May 16th, 1996 I
served two true copies of the attached "SUPPLEMENTAL BRIEF
OF PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, MACMILLAN,
INC. AND ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INCORPORATED" upon defendants-appellants
MICHIGAN DOCUMENT SERVICES, INC. and JAMES M. SMITH at the
address designated by them for that purpose, Bodman, Longley
& Dahling, 110 Miller, Suite 300, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104,
by depositing the papers enclosed in a prepaid sealed wrapper,
properly addressed, in an official depository under the care
and custody of The United States Postal Service within New
York State.
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Herman L. Goldsmith |
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