Question

Funny Family Vids, Inc. is an online website where users can post their funny home videos. Some of its users also post copyrighted material belonging to others, however. What is the legal consequence, if a website's user uploads entire movies without permission?

a. Neither the website nor its user can be sued for copyright infringement because of fair use.

b. The website has the opportunity to remove the infringing material in order to avoid liability.

c. The website becomes liable for copyright infringement and therefore can be taken down at the option of the authorities.

d. The owner of the copyrighted material can immediately sue for damages under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Answer 1

Option a

Neither the website nor its user can be sued for copyright infringement because of fair use.

Fair use of a material means use of a copyrighted content in some specific conditions without seeking the permission of the owner. Category of fair use may contain reporting of news, research and teaching purpose etc. But, uploading of a full movie to a website is not deemed to be a fair use and thus this statement is not correct.

Hence, option (a) is incorrect.

Option b

The website has the opportunity to remove the infringing material in order to avoid liability.

A website cannot delete the content of a post of a user. Therefore, this statement is invalid.

Hence, option (b) is incorrect.

Option c

The website becomes liable for copyright infringement and therefore can be taken down at the option of the authorities.

Copyright infringement can be put to the website. But, it cannot be taken to the option of authorities. Thus, the statement is invalid.

Hence, option (c) is incorrect.

Option d

The owner of the copyrighted material can immediately sue for damages under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act allows the copyright owned creator of the content to sue for the damages of taking the same and uploading in another website without due permission. This Act protects both the content creator and user. Hence, this statement is valid.

Hence, option (d) is correct.