Beware: a very bad precedent set

Mon Aug 31 23:47:53 UTC 2009

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 5:51 PM, Jack Bates<jbates at brightok.net> wrote:
> "The Akanoc Defendants’ specific business model of providing unmanaged
> server capacity to web hosting resellers does not exempt them from taking
> active steps to effectively prevent infringing activity upon notification
> from an intellectual property rights owner. "
>
> I consider that the more important statement in the article. The "upon
> notification" being the largest issue. Don't know if DMCA covers anything
> outside the scope of copyright, but I think it's been generally accepted
> that ignoring reports of infringement can bring about liability.

Does anyone have a link to the decision?

If you go to http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2009/01/web_host_faces.htm
and click on "Louis Vuitton Malletier, S.A. v. Akanoc Solutions, Inc."
you can get an earlier decision regarding Akanoc's motion for summary
judgement in the case.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like Akanoc had a customer who
put a server in their facility. This customer then hosted a bunch of
sites including the ones that infringed. On receiving a complaint,
Akanoc contacted the customer and more or less said, kill this website
or we unplug your server. Then the customer shuffled the site around
to another of his servers.

Have a look at pages 10 through 12. Page 12 lines 11-13, it reads to
me like the judge made a serious error trying to understand the
difference between a web site and an IP address.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
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