Case: 08-51194 Document: 00511035257 Page: 1 Date Filed: 02/25/2010
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
February 25, 2010
No. 08-51194 Charles R. Fulbruge III
Clerk
MAVERICK RECORDING COMPANY, A California Joint Venture; UMG
RECORDINGS INC, A Delaware Corporation; ARISTA RECORDS LLC, A
Delaware Limited Liability Company; WARNER BROTHERS RECORDS
INC, A Delaware Corporation; SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, A
Delaware General Partnership
Plaintiffs – Appellees-Cross-Appellants
v.
WHITNEY HARPER
Defendant – Appellant-Cross-Appellee
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Texas
Before DAVIS, CLEMENT, and ELROD, Circuit Judges.
EDITH BROWN CLEMENT, Circuit Judge:
Ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court found
that appellant Whitney Harper infringed copyrights held by a consortium of
record companies in 37 sound recordings. It also found that whether Harper was
an “innocent infringer” under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(2) was a question for the jury.
On Plaintiffs’ motion, the court entered a final judgment against Harper in the
amount of $200 per infringed work, the minimum amount that could be awarded
for innocent infringement. Harper appealed and Plaintiffs cross-appealed. We
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affirm the district court’s finding of copyright infringement but reverse its
conclusion that Harper could press the “innocent infringer” defense.
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
In June 2004, MediaSentry, a company retained by Plaintiffs to
investigate the infringement of their copyrights over the Internet, identified an
individual using a file-sharing program to share 544 digital audio files with
other users of a peer-to-peer network. The shared audio files included a number
of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings. By tracing the user’s Internet
protocol address, Plaintiffs ultimately identified Harper as the individual
responsible for the file sharing.
To ensure that each of the 544 audio files was a downloadable file,
MediaSentry initiated a download of the entire group. The company captured
screen shots showing all of the files that Harper was sharing. It also captured
the metadata associated with each file, which included the name of the artist
and song. This information allowed Plaintiffs to identify those sound recordings
on which they held a copyright. MediaSentry fully downloaded six of the audio
files from Harper’s “shared folder.” Subsequent discovery indicated that Harper
had downloaded all of the files from the Internet to the computer without paying
for them, and that she had not copied, or “ripped,” any of the songs from compact
discs that she had bought legally.
During discovery, Plaintiffs examined Harper’s computer. The
examination showed that its operating system had been reinstalled in 2005. As
a result, most of the files present on the computer in 2004, when MediaSentry
performed its investigation, had been overwritten. The forensic examination did
show that three file-sharing programs had been installed and used on the
computer, including a program known as LimeWire, which had been used after
the operating system was reinstalled. It also revealed a new cache of
approximately 700 recordings downloaded since the reinstallation. Fifteen of the
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copyrights that Plaintiffs’ second amended complaint alleged that Harper
infringed came from this newly discovered cache.
In August 2008, the district court granted Plaintiffs’ motion for summary
judgment on their copyright claims for 37 audio files. By agreement of the
parties, the court also entered an injunction against Harper.
The district court denied Plaintiffs’ request for statutory damages.
Plaintiffs had requested the minimum damages of $750 per infringed work set
forth in § 504(c)(1). Harper asserted that her infringement was “innocent” under
§ 504(c)(2), which provides that “where the infringer sustains the burden of
proving . . . that [she] was not aware and had no reason to believe that . . . her
acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may
reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200.” Harper
averred that she thought her actions were equivalent to listening to an Internet
radio station. The district court found that whether her infringement was
“innocent” presented a disputed issue of material fact.
The district court denied each party’s motion for reconsideration. In doing
so, it clarified its finding that Harper infringed Plaintiffs’ exclusive rights to both
reproduce and distribute the 37 songs on which they held a copyright.
Reserving the right to appeal the district court’s legal conclusion on the
innocent infringer issue if Harper appealed, Plaintiffs moved for entry of
judgment in the amount of $200 for each infringed work—the minimum amount
due from an innocent infringer. The court granted Plaintiffs’ motion and entered
judgment against Harper. Harper appealed, and Plaintiffs cross-appealed.
Harper argues that, for 31 of the 37 recordings, there was insufficient
evidence of infringement because the audio files were not found on her computer.
She also contends that she did not infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrights by “making
available” the audio files and that the Copyright Act’s statutory damages scheme
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violates due process. Plaintiffs argue that the district court erred by failing to
rule out the innocent infringer defense as a matter of law.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
We review a grant of summary judgment de novo and apply the same legal
standard as the district court. Miller v. Gorski Wladyslaw Estate, 547 F.3d 273,
277 (5th Cir. 2008). Summary judgment should be rendered if the record
demonstrates that “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the
movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” F ED. R. C IV. P. 56(c). “[A]ll
facts and evidence must be taken in the light most favorable to the non-movant.”
LeMaire v. La. Dep’t of Transp. & Dev., 480 F.3d 383, 387 (5th Cir. 2007).
DISCUSSION
A. Sufficiency of the Evidence
Harper argues that Plaintiffs did not present sufficient evidence for the
district court to find that 31 of the 37 1 audio files at issue existed on her
computer. She does not contest the existence of the six audio files that
MediaSentry downloaded in full over the peer-to-peer file-sharing network in
2004. She also cannot contest the existence of the 15 audio files that were part
of the cache of approximately 700 songs discovered on Harper’s hard drive in
2008. The issue, then, is whether Plaintiffs made an undisputed showing that
Harper had downloaded the remaining 16 audio files.
Harper’s argument relies on the computer forensic expert’s inability to
recover complete copies of the 16 contested audio files when the expert searched
her computer’s hard drive in 2008. That inability was due to the 2005
reinstallation of the computer’s operating system, which overwrote most of the
1
In her brief, Harper asserts that the evidence was insufficient to show the existence
of 33 out of 39 audio files. That sum reflects a miscalculation. After the district court’s entry
of judgment as to 37 audio files, six of which Harper admits were on her computer, she must
be challenging the sufficiency of the evidence on 31 audio files.
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audio files present in 2004. Harper asserts that the 2008 forensic evidence is
inconclusive and that a jury could find that the file remnants discovered in the
2008 examination were something other than downloaded audio files.
Harper’s argument ignores the voluminous and undisputed evidence that
she downloaded and shared the 16 contested audio files. MediaSentry’s screen
shots of Harper’s “shared folder” indicate that she was sharing the contested
audio files from her computer in 2004. MediaSentry also initiated downloads of
the audio files to verify their existence and recovered metadata from which it
could identify the artist and song title of each file.
Harper submitted no evidence that calls into question Plaintiffs’ showing
that she had downloaded the audio files. In her deposition, she did not deny that
she had downloaded them. She also testified that she had not copied any of the
recordings to her computer from compact discs that she purchased, and she
acknowledged using a peer-to-peer file-sharing network and stated that she
recognized “some of the songs . . . as music I listened to and may have
downloaded to the computer.”
The uncontroverted evidence is more than sufficient to compel a finding
that Harper had downloaded the files: there was no evidence from which a fact-
finder could draw a reasonable inference that Harper had not downloaded them
or that they were something other than audio files. Harper “cannot defeat a
motion for summary judgment merely by claiming some metaphysical doubt as
to the material facts.” Thibodeaux v. Vamos Oil & Gas Co., 487 F.3d 288, 295
(5th Cir. 2007) (quotation omitted). The district court properly rejected Harper’s
argument that the evidence of infringement was insufficient.
B. Copyright Infringement
Section 106 of the Copyright Act grants copyright owners the exclusive
right “to do and to authorize,” inter alia, the reproduction of “the copyrighted
work in copies or phonorecords,” the preparation of “derivative works based upon
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the copyrighted work,” and the distribution of “copies or phonorecords of the
copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by
rental, lease, or lending.” 17 U.S.C. § 106. Plaintiffs’ second amended complaint
contains one count, for copyright infringement. Plaintiffs alleged that Harper
had violated their copyrights in two ways: first, by reproducing the copyrighted
audio files, and second, by making them available to others, which Plaintiffs
argue is tantamount to “distribution.” The district court found that the
undisputed evidence showed Harper had done both.
Harper argues that making audio files available to others by placing them
in a “shared folder” accessible by users of a peer-to-peer file-sharing network
does not constitute “distribut[ion]” under § 106(3). Cf. Elektra Entm’t Group,
Inc. v. Barker, 551 F. Supp. 2d 234, 239-47 (S.D.N.Y. 2008) (collecting cases in
which courts have considered but not embraced the “making available” theory
of distribution). We need not address the “making available” argument at this
time, however, because Harper did not appeal the district court’s finding that
she had infringed Plaintiffs’ copyrights by downloading, and hence reproducing,
the audio files. Because Plaintiffs only seek minimum statutory damages, the
question before the court is whether Harper’s actions violated the Copyright Act,
not how or to what extent they violated it. See 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(1) (allowing
copyright holders to elect “to recover . . . an award of statutory damages for all
infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work”). Harper’s
failure to contest the alternative, independent ground on which the district court
found her liable for copyright infringement renders superfluous her argument
against the “making available” theory. Even if the court agreed that Harper did
not “distribute” the recordings under § 106(3) by making them available to
others, the underlying finding of copyright infringement predicated on
reproduction would remain.
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The district court’s unchallenged ruling that Harper infringed Plaintiffs’
copyrights by downloading the audio files is supported by case law in this and
other circuits. In Alcatel USA, Inc. v. DGI Technologies, Inc., this court held that
the distribution of a microprocessor card that made copies of an operating
system by downloading it caused users to violate the plaintiff’s “exclusive right
to reproduce its software.” 166 F.3d 772, 791 (5th Cir. 1999); see § 106(1). In
BMG Music v. Gonzalez, the Seventh Circuit held that a defendant infringed
copyrights by downloading music through a file-sharing network. 430 F.3d 888
(7th Cir. 2005), cert. denied, 547 U.S. 1130 (2006). Gonzalez explained that the
foundation of the Supreme Court’s holding in MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster,
Ltd., 545 U.S. 913 (2005), “is a belief that people who post or download music
files are primary infringers.” 430 F.3d at 889; see also In re Aimster Copyright
Litig., 334 F.3d 643, 645 (7th Cir. 2003) (“swapping” music files over the Internet
“infringes copyright”); A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004, 1014
(9th Cir. 2001) (“Napster users who download files containing copyrighted music
violate plaintiffs’ reproduction rights.”).
Harper infringed Plaintiffs’ exclusive right to reproduce their copyrighted
works by downloading the 37 audio files to her computer without authorization.
The district court correctly granted summary judgment on the issue of
infringement.
C. Due Process
Harper contends that the statutory scheme of damages for copyright
violations outlined in § 504, as applied to her, violates due process by imposing
grossly excessive damages. She argues that, at the time of the infringement, she
was young and did not know that what she was doing was unlawful, and that
fining her several hundred dollars per song for illegal downloading does not
comport with substantive due process.
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Harper, however, waived her constitutional challenge by failing to raise
it below in a manner that would allow the district court to rule on it. “It is well
settled in this Circuit that the scope of appellate review on a summary judgment
order is limited to matters presented to the district court.” Keelan v. Majesco
Software, Inc., 407 F.3d 332, 339 (5th Cir. 2005). “If a party wishes to preserve
an argument for appeal,” it “‘must press and not merely intimate the argument
during the proceedings before the district court.’” Id. at 340 (quoting New York
Life Ins. Co. v. Brown, 84 F.3d 137, 141 n.4 (5th Cir. 1995)). “If an argument is
not raised to such a degree that the district court has an opportunity to rule on
it, we will not address it on appeal.” FDIC v. Mijalis, 15 F.3d 1314, 1327 (5th
Cir. 1994).
In her opposition to Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, Harper
stated that she had notified the district court of her intent to challenge the
constitutionality of the Copyright Act. She then presented the whole of her
constitutional argument: “Whitney Harper believes that the copyright law, as
being applied by the plaintiff is unfair and over-reaching and exacts an
unreasonable punishment.” Harper did not cite any provision of the
Constitution or explain why the punishment was so unreasonable that it
violated due process. The district court did not rule on her conclusory and
unsupported assertion. It was not remiss in failing to do so. The point was
simply not pressed in Harper’s brief in a cognizable fashion. Instead, it was
“presented in a cursory manner” insufficient to preserve it for appeal. In re
Espino, 806 F.2d 1001, 1002 (11th Cir. 1986).
D. “Innocent Infringer” Defense
In denying Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment as to damages, the
district court held that there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether
Harper was an innocent infringer. The innocent infringer defense gives the
district court discretion to reduce the minimum statutory damages from $750 to
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$200 per infringed work if it finds that the infringer “was not aware and had no
reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright.”
17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(2). Harper averred in an affidavit that she did not understand
the nature of file-sharing programs and that she believed that listening to music
from file-sharing networks was akin to listening to a non-infringing Internet
radio station. The district court ruled that this assertion created a triable issue
as to whether Harper’s infringement was “innocent” under § 504(c)(2).
Assuming arguendo that Harper made a prima facie case that she was an
innocent infringer, we hold that the defense was unavailable to her as a matter
of law. The innocent infringer defense is limited by 17 U.S.C. § 402: with one
exception not relevant here, when a proper copyright notice “appears on the
published . . . phonorecords to which a defendant . . . had access, then no weight
shall be given to such a defendant’s interposition of a defense based on innocent
infringement in mitigation of actual or statutory damages.” Id. § 402(d).
The district court acknowledged that Plaintiffs provided proper notice on
each of the published phonorecords from which the audio files were taken. It
found, however, that regardless of Harper’s access to the published
phonorecords, such access would not necessarily put her on notice of the
copyrights: “a question remains as to whether Defendant knew the warnings on
compact discs were applicable in this [file-sharing network] setting.” The court
discounted the argument “that one need only have access to some CD and see
that the recording is subject to copyright” for § 402(d) to bar the innocent
infringer defense, because knowledge that some CDs are copyrighted does “little
to establish that, as a matter of law . . . an individual knew that she was
accessing copyright material from an entity that did not have permission to
distribute such material.” In her brief opposing summary judgment and brief
on appeal, and at oral argument, rather than contest the fact of “access,” Harper
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contended only that she was too young and naive to understand that the
copyrights on published music applied to downloaded music.
These arguments are insufficient to defeat the interposition of the § 402(d)
limitation on the innocent infringer defense. Harper’s reliance on her own
understanding of copyright law—or lack thereof—is irrelevant in the context of
§ 402(d). The plain language of the statute shows that the infringer’s knowledge
or intent does not affect its application.2 Lack of legal sophistication cannot
overcome a properly asserted § 402(d) limitation to the innocent infringer
defense.
This understanding is supported by the historical structure of the
copyright law. What is now § 402(d) was amended as part of the Berne
Convention Implementation Act (“BCIA”), Pub. L. No. 100-568, 102 Stat. 2853
(1988). Before the Berne Convention was adopted, publishers ran the risk of
placing their work into the public domain by failing to include a notice of
copyright. “Under the BCIA,” however, “notice is no longer required at
publication.” 2-7 M ELVILLE B. N IMMER & D AVID N IMMER, N IMMER ON C OPYRIGHT
§ 7.02(C)(3) (2009). But the BCIA, in part through § 402(d), “preserves an
incentive for use of the same type of copyright notice.” Id. That incentive is the
bar to the innocent infringer defense. Under this scheme, it would make no
sense for a copyright defendant’s subjective intent to erode the working of
§ 402(d), which gives publishers the option to trade the extra burden of providing
copyright notice for absolute protection against the innocent infringer defense.
Harper cannot rely on her purported legal naivety to defeat the § 402(d) bar to
her innocent infringer defense.
In short, the district court found a genuine issue of fact as to whether
Harper intended to infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrights, but that issue was not
2
And copyright infringement itself has no mens rea element. 2-7 MELVILLE B. NIM M ER
& DAVID NIM M ER , NIM M ER ON COPYRIGHT § 7.02 & n.26.1 (2009).
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material: § 402(d) forecloses, as a matter of law, Harper’s innocent infringer
defense. Because the defense does not apply, Plaintiffs are entitled to statutory
damages. And because Plaintiffs requested the minimum statutory damages
under § 504(c)(1), Harper’s culpability is not an issue and there are no issues left
for trial. Plaintiffs must be awarded statutory damages of $750 per infringed
work.
CONCLUSION
The district court correctly found that Harper infringed Plaintiffs’
copyrights by downloading the 37 audio files at issue. It erred, though, by
allowing Harper’s innocent infringer defense to survive summary judgment. We
AFFIRM the district court’s finding of copyright liability, REVERSE its finding
that the innocent infringer defense presented an issue for trial, and REMAND
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
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