Gary Fung’s Torrent Sites Liable for Contributory Copyright Infringement

The Digital Media Lawyer Blog:  “The copyright infringement claims brought against Canadian Gary Fung and his .torrent sites have at last been resolved. On December 21, 2009, Judge Wilson of the Central District of California found Fung and several of his .torrent sites liable for inducement of copyright infringement.  Wilson’s decision was based largely the same grounds on which other operators of peer-to-peer filing sharing were found liable in Grokster, Napster and Usenet.  To be liable for inducing copyright infringement, a defendant must have knowledge of another’s infringement and undertake purposeful acts aimed at assisting and encouraging this infringement. . . . This means that the plaintiff must first show that there has been an act of direct infringement by third parties. . . . In the case of peer-to-peer filing sharing, infringement can occur both when a copyrighted work is uploaded (this violates the copyright holder’s distribution right) and when it is downloaded (this violates the copyright holder’s reproduction right).”