In a December 31, 2013 decision, Judge Ronnie Abrams considered the application of the “Safe Harbor” defense in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to plaintiffs’ claims against Vimeo, LLC. Vimeo operates a service that allows users to upload videos that they have created. The plaintiff music publishers sued Vimeo “asserting claims for direct, contributory, vicarious, and common law copyright infringement, as well as for inducement to infringe copyright and unfair compliance.” In a prior decision, the Court ruled that certain videos on the Vimeo service met the Safe Harbor requirements, others did not, and that “the Safe Harbor did not extend to videos containing music recorded before February 15, 1972.” Vimeo sought reconsideration of the denial of Safe Harbor status as to some of the videos, and sought leave to file an interlocutory appeal about the pre-February 15, 1972 recordings. Regarding the reconsideration motion, the Court noted that the “Safe Harbor limits the liability of service providers for copyright infringement that occurs ‘by reason of the storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider,’ as long as the provider satisfies certain criteria.” Vimeo argued on reconsideration that the only evidence that Vimeo had viewed certain of the challenged videos was that its employees could review videos in the accounts of the users who had uploaded these videos, not that they had done so. Judge Abrams ruled that this evidence was too tenuous to permit the Court to conclude that Vimeo’s employees had in fact viewed the videos. The Court largely rejected, however, Vimeo’s argument on reconsideration that even if Vimeo had viewed the videos, they did not have “red flag” knowledge – i.e., it was not “obvious” that they infringed the plaintiffs’ copyrights – finding fact questions for the jury about that issue.
The Court also agreed to certify two questions for interlocutory review: (1) the issue about the pre-February 15, 1972 recordings, and (2) “whether . . . a service provider’s viewing of a user-generated video containing all or virtually all of a recognizable, copyrighted song may establish ‘facts or circumstances’ giving rise to ‘red flag’ knowledge of infringement.” As to the first issue, Judge Abrams ruled that it is a pure question of law, and “that there exists a substantial ground for difference of opinion on this issue.” As to the second issue, the Court noted that although the inquiry depends in part on the contents of each video, the defendants do not contest for purposes of the appeal that the videos “contain visual images set to copyrighted songs played essentially in their entirety.” The Court further found that determining whether a defendant has sufficient “knowledge of infringement [to void the Safe Harbor] is a difficult question that has important ramifications for service providers such as Vimeo,” and that there is a “substantial ground for difference of opinion” on the issue. Thus, the Court certified both issues for interlocutory review.
