CHAPTERS THREE & FOUR - COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT QUIZ

Fred Flintstone hires Web designer Barney Rubble to create a Web site for Flintstone’s Fiddles Repair Shop. Barney asks Fred for a photograph of Fred to use
on the Web site and Fred gives Barney a copy of a magazine that has a very flattering photograph of Fred accompanying an article on Flintstone’s Fiddles. He tells Barney to use that photograph and to copy the text of the article onto the Web site’s “About Us” page. Fred also gives Barney an old Flintstone’s Fiddles brochure with a cover photograph of famous violinist Rock Granite. Fred assures Barney that the photo was licensed and paid for to use in the brochure so they can use it on the Web site. Barney has included a message board and guestbook on the Web site. Fred is concerned because visitors have been posting product reviews from music magazines on the message board and Slate’s Rock & Gravel Co. has been filling the guestbook with spam. Barney has cleverly designed the Web site with frames so that on one page the eBay Web site auction listings for musical instruments appears framed within Fred’s Web site. On the home page Barney has used an inline link to cause a copyrighted photograph of Clay Limestone, a famous musician, to appear on the page. Barney assures Fred that there is no copyright concern here because the photograph is still hosted on the original server and has not been “copied” to Fred’s server. Meanwhile, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm have been downloading music from Quartzaa, a decentralized P2P file-sharing network. The Bedrock United Record Producers (BURP) is suing Mr. Quarry, owner of Quartzaa, as a contributory infringer. What defenses can Mr. Quarry use? BURP has subpoenaed Rocklink, the ISP, to discover the identity of the downloaders.
What issues does this raise for both Rocklink and Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm? Noticing Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm’s growing interest in music, Fred has an epiphany and decides to expand his business to include music lessons to schoolchildren. So with the help of a good HTML book, a six-pack of Shale beer and a
long weekend, Fred completely revamps the Flintstone’s Fiddles Web site. A short time later, Barney files a copyright infringement lawsuit against Fred. Fred tells Barney that he cannot sue him for making modifications to his own Web site. Is Fred right? As part of his music lesson program, one of Fred's Web site modifications was a widget that enables visitors to download songs directly from the Quartzaa P2P network. Could Fred have any liability as a contributory infringer, a vicarious infringer, or as an inducer?

List the issues involved and probable outcomes.

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