buyer of illegally copied material?

[shortbus]

Maybe it does defy common sense -- but it is consistent with the law. Again, if you can find a case that found a purchaser of a single infringing article liable for contributory or vicarious infringement, I would be interested in reading it. I am unaware of any case where a single purchase, standing alone, was sufficient to impute vicarious or contributory liability for copyright infringement.

I agree with you that it wouldn't be contributory infringement if the copy existed prior to the purchase. For instance, if I buy a pirated Shrek DVD on the street for $10, I wouldn't be liable for contributory infringement. I can't induce the copy, because the copy has already been made.

But if I give a guy $10 to make me a copy of his Shrek DVD, then it's contributory infringement, because the inducement of $10 is causing him to manufacture the copy.

Here, the OP did not buy an existing copy -- she bought the right to make a copy. The copy did not exist prior to her purchase. After she bought it, the seller sent her a download link. So either the buyer is the direct infringer (by making a copy of the infringing PDF from the link), or if you like to think of the seller as the direct infringer, then the buyer is a contributory infringer.

As you yourself said: "Downloading has been found to create copy, so the act of initiating a download creates a copy, and the downloader is liable for copyright infringement because they made a copy."

If the seller had the PDF on a CD-ROM and sent that copy to the buyer, I agree the situation would be different. But that's not what happened.

 

[quincy]

theleela - We ARE scaring you, aren't we? Honestly, I doubt if anyone is after you. I wouldn't worry. The company wants the guy making money off these infringed copies and they want him to pay damages and they want him to stop. They are investigating ways to get him to stop. One of the ways is to contact all of the people who have purchased books from him so they can identify him properly, check out the scope of his little business operation, and recover their losses. They are probably checking out the site where he advertises to see if there is any involvement there (a bigger pocket to pick if there is!) and then they will have you delete your copy and have you promise never to do anything like that again (as if you would after all of this). Yes, there are a lot of possible outcomes, and no one really knows what will happen until it happens, but I really doubt that they will go to the expense of filing multiple suits. I THINK you can just cooperate, help put this guy out of business, and go to grad school, and have a happy life.

 

[theleela]

Thank you everyone so much for all the information to guide me through this!

I still can't relax 100% because I have not yet double checked to see if I'm off this case now... but I called the office today, speaked to their lawyer, who asked me simple questions about the seller's method of contacting me or giving me the link, etc... and when I told him (as an answer to his Q) that I knew that it was a pdf beforehand, I didn't really get a reaction. And even after that, he said that they will be sending me free copies of the paper books as a thanks to cooperating in the process.

 

[The Occultist]

I advise that you be completely cooperative with them, and share exactly how you acquired the PDF after the purchase. My guess is that either way, they will find out how you actually received the PDF; how would you prefer they found out? From you? or from their own investigation? And how do you think that will make you look?

As for your CD question, I'm not going to answer it. The other posters of this forum, despite disagreeing in other areas, have all agreed on what a CD copy means, and as such has been answered in this thread multiple times. Read the posts.

 

[theleela]

I advise that you be completely cooperative with them, and share exactly how you acquired the PDF after the purchase. My guess is that either way, they will find out how you actually received the PDF; how would you prefer they found out? From you? or from their own investigation? And how do you think that will make you look?

Yes, that's what I was thinking... but I'm afraid that I might be considered an infringer in this case or something. This case hasn't been "discovered" or anything yet. So I myself will be making them aware of it, which potentially may harm me as well, which is the part I'm worried about.

 

[The Occultist]

Yes, that's what I was thinking... but I'm afraid that I might be considered an infringer in this case or something. This case hasn't been "discovered" or anything yet. So I myself will be making them aware of it, which potentially may harm me as well, which is the part I'm worried about.

Yes, but if they find out on their own, they will be upset that you did not fully cooperate with them.

Standby for responses from others.

 

[theleela]

Actually--this may be a dumb question--I'm looking back at the files I got now, and the majority of them don't have obvious copyright markings on them. About half of them has the company logo but nothing like copyrighted by (c) or anything like that... and about half of the remaining stuff doesn't have anything like a logo OR a (c) statement anywhere (which I guess also means I cannot tell if this really is an illegal version of the original copy or a fluke that the seller made up). So then what's up with this?

 

[The Occultist]

It is not required for anything to have any sort of copyright notice. A work is automatically covered by copyright as soon as it has a tangible form.

 

[theleela]

I think the Occultist is the only one who may have really read my previous post that I so hastily edited...

(I made one other purchase around the time of this material that the thread is focused on... and that was a very similar case also. Actually, both sellers did the exact same thing--made me know that it was in pdf and sent me a link for me to download... this one was on craigslist... and the only other purchase im doubtful about!)

Anyway, for this latter purchase... I called the company today out of guilt and scaredness that they may eventually find out and I'll be fined also for not coming forward--to confess that I bought the copy but at the same time I can let them know that there's a seller out there ripping them off (about $240 off the company each time the seller makes a selling, and this seller has been around for a few years it seems, with numerous new listings every week)... and I got a totally unexpected reaction of: they just asked me for the link of the craigslist webpage that had the listing... and when I told them in a scared voice that I also bought a copy a little over a week ago, they said "it's ok, you didn't know" ... didn't ask anything else about the seller or me or the situation--just said thanks for letting them know of it and that was it.

Now I'm confused... does this mean they don't really care? Or they weren't sure what to ask me on the spot either? If they find this guy and possibly all the people who bought the material, they wouldn't know by name that I was the one who called them or anything... and should I delete their pdf materials now since they haven't said anything about that either? (and me, being a nervous wreck, forgot to ask any of this either)

thanks so much in advance, again!!

 

[quincy]

I think the company is probably already tracking sales from that site. Sounds like they were aware of it, at any rate.
You were wise to report it.

 

[theleela]

Hi, I'm the original poster again, a month later. I'm wondering if anything could be going on. The company said that they will contact me within the next few weeks and in the meantime mail me a free print copy of the books. However, I have not received anything and cannot get in contact with the company to see whether I'm still involved in the case or not. Last thing they told me about a month ago was to keep the files "for now" and now I'm still kinda queasy about it.

I'm wondering if I could have been sued without my knowledge or anything like that... As far as I know, I have not received any emails regarding this at all, no mail in either my schoola ddress (one I gave them for mailing books) or permanent address (that they may have obtained info about from ebay or something, can they do something like that?)... I think I'm just freaked out now that I'm not getting any responses from them...

 

[quincy]

Things like this tend to take longer than expected - they are probably still working on locating the original seller, or getting every purchaser identified to determine the scope of the infringement and all, and they will probably contact you once everything is wrapped up. I wouldn't worry about any of it - they don't seem too concerned with your involvement so you shouldn't be either (it would have been nice if they had sent you the books, though! )

 

[theleela]

I apologize for reviving a thread from a year ago!

But I (the OP) am applying to schools this summer eek and I wanted to make sure I can confidently say "no" to sections asking me about misdemeanor or felony conviction ("Have you ever been convicted of, or pleaded guilty or no contest to...").

The only thing that bothered me about the aftermath of this ebay incident was that (1) the company never got back to me, after all, though I contacted them twice where I asked them if I'm fine and off the case... and (2) my mailing address has changed a number of times since the last time I gave them my summer school address so that they could mail me books. I don't care about the books anymore, but important legal mails couldn't have been lost in the mail and I just didn't know about it?

I'm assuming a no and these are just some dumb paranoia on my part, but I wanted to double check, nevertheless

 

[quincy]

If you have never been to court before, on this matter or on any other, then you have never been convicted of, pled guilty to or pled no contest to any crime.

Believe me, you would know if you had a misdemeanor conviction, and a felony conviction would definitely be hard to forget.

I think you would be safe to put "NO" in those sections.

As for reviving this post, this is actually the best way to do it, so that the forum members can see the history behind any new questions you may have.