Ellison v. AOL: Many organizations could be held contributorily liable.

(I've finally got a scoop...)

The 9th Circuit just handed down a decision in Ellison v. AOL that could leave many organizations (such as my institution, UC Berkeley) liable for contributory copyright infringement. The 9th Circuit found that AOL's failure to update its agent of record with the copyright office could possibly constitute contributory liability because, if it had kept that information current, AOL would have not missed DMCA Section 512 notices sent to that address.

Here's the kicker: I learned when I was C&D'd by Diebold, Inc. last fall that UC Berkeley's agent of record is out of date. Specifically, the listed agent of record is Jacqueline Craig, who recently left UC Berkeley to become the new University of California Office of the President's Director of Policy. Berkeley's agent of record is listed with the Copyright Office here (local copy here). AOL's agent of record was last updated in 1999! (local copy here )

The bigger picture becomes apparent when you start to poke around the agent of record list at the U.S. Copyright Office... many of the entries were last updated a long time ago (note that in the Ellison case that AOL had lagged in updating by "months"). I'm still wrestling with the implications that this could have. For example, this seems like a tool the RIAA (or anyone really) could use to get in the very deep pockets of Universities and large ISPs. Yikes.

When was your institution/organization's record last updated... let's take a look: Harvard (02/2003), Stanford (08/2002), Berkeley (01/2000), MIT (01/1999)... Posted by joebeone at Febrero 10, 2004 09:56 PM