Advanced Copyright Issues on the Internet - Fenwick & West LLP

Accordingly, the court enjoined 321 Studios from manufacturing, distributing, or otherwisetrafficking in any type of DVD circumvention software. 762(ix) I.M.S. Inquiry Management Systems, Ltd. v.Berkshire Information Systems, Inc.This case reached the opposite result from the 321 Studios v. Metro Goldwyn Mayercase, and held that the unauthorized use of an otherwise legitimate, owner-issued password doesnot constitute a “circumvention” of a technological measure under the DMCA. 763 The plaintiffowned a web-based service that provided information on tracking magazine advertisingexclusively to its clients through proprietary passwords. The defendant obtained a useridentification and password issued to a third party and made unauthorized use of the same togain access to the plaintiff’s web site, from which the defendant downloaded approximately 85%of the report formats and copied those formats into its competing service. 764 The court ruledthere was no DMCA violation because “what defendant avoided and bypassed was permission toengage and move through the technological measure from the measure’s author. … Defendantdid not surmount or puncture or evade any technological measure to do so; instead, it used apassword intentionally issued by plaintiff to another entity.” 765(x)Paramount Pictures Corp. v. 321 Studios.The court in this case, in a very short opinion citing the Corley and Reimerdes cases andfor the reasons stated therein, held that 321 Studios violated the anti-circumvention provisions ofthe DMCA by manufacturing and selling its software product that permitted the possessor of aDVD encoded with CSS to decode CSS and thereby make identical copies of the DVD. Thecourt enjoined 321 Studios from manufacturing, distributing, linking to, or otherwise traffickingin any of its software products that were capable of decrypting CSS. 766(xi) Macrovision Corp. v. 321 StudiosIn this case, the same judge as in the Paramount Pictures case, in a one paragraph opinionthat simply cited his earlier decision in the Paramount Pictures case, issued a preliminaryinjunction against 321 Studios barring it from selling the various versions of its DVD copyingsoftware. 767 In August of 2004, 321 Studios reached a settlement with the motion picture762763764765766767Id. at 1105.I.M.S. Inquiry Management Systems, Ltd. v. Berkshire Information Systems, Inc., 307 F. Supp. 2d 521(S.D.N.Y. 2004).Id. at 523.Id. at 532-33.Paramount Pictures Corp. v. 321 Studios, 69 U.S.P.Q.2d 2023, 2023-24 (S.D.N.Y. 2004).Macrovision Corp. v. 321 Studios, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8345 (S.D.N.Y. May 12, 2004).- 176 -