Warner Bros. Records, Inc. v. Walker

704 F. Supp. 2d 460, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31308, 2010 WL 1333147
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedMarch 31, 2010
DocketC.A. 07-287 Erie
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 704 F. Supp. 2d 460 (Warner Bros. Records, Inc. v. Walker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Warner Bros. Records, Inc. v. Walker, 704 F. Supp. 2d 460, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31308, 2010 WL 1333147 (W.D. Pa. 2010).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

SEAN J. McLAUGHLIN, District Judge.

This matter is before the Court upon Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment. The matter is fully briefed and is now ripe for disposition. For the reasons which follow, Plaintiffs’ motion will be granted.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs Warner Brothers Records, Inc., Virgin Records America, Inc., Capital Records, LLC, UMG Recordings, Inc., and Sony BMG Music Entertainment (“Plaintiffs”) are recording companies that own or control exclusive rights to copyrighted sound recordings. (Complaint ¶ 11). Collectively, Plaintiffs are the undisputed owners of the copyrights to the following 19 sound recordings relevant to the instant action: 1

Copyright Plaintiff Artist Song Title Album Title SR#
Capital Records Poison Unskinny Bop Flesh and Blood 119-355
UMG Recordings 50 Cent Don’t Push Me Get Rich Or Die Trvin’_ 337-801
Warner Bros. A-Ha Take On Me Hunting High and 63-603 Low
UMG Recordings Def Leppard Pour Some Sugar on Hysteria Me_ 90-420
SONY BMG Cyndi Lauper Time After Time She’s So Unusual 50-827
UMG Recordings Bon Jovi Livin’ on a Prayer Slippery When Wet 71-794
Warner Bros. Blake Shelton Some Beach Some Beach (single) 359-307
Warner Bros. My Chemical Romance Helena Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge 360-197
UMG Recordings Tiffany Could’ve Been Tiffany 83-157
SONY BMG Bonnie Tyler Total Eclipse of the Heart Total Eclipse of the Heart (single)_ 50-640
*462 Warner Bros. The Pretenders I’ll Stand By You Last Of The Independents 191-975
Virgin Records UB40 Red Red Wine Labour of Love 49-244
Capital Records Billy Idol Rebel Yell Rebel Yell 52-131
UMG Recordings Archie Eversole We Ready Ride Wit Me Dirty South Style_ 316-541
SONY BMG Bruce Springsteen Hungry Heart The River 25-235
umg Recordings The Police Every Breath You Take_ Synchronicity 44-
Capital Records Poison I Want Action Look What the Cat Dragged In_ -349
Capital Records Poison Every rose has its thorn_ Open Up & Say... Ahh!_ 93-741
SONY BMG Michael Bolton How Can We Be Lovers_ Soul Provider 106-829

(Complaint, Ex. 3).

In an effort to protect their copyrighted works from being illegally downloaded and distributed across the internet, Plaintiffs employ a third party service, MediaSentry, to attempt to detect possible copyright violations. (Declaration of Chris Connelly, ¶ 2-3) (“Connelly Deck”). Many of these violations occur using peer-to-peer (“P2P”) file sharing networks in which individual internet users can search for, download and transfer exact copies of files (including sound recordings) from one computer to another over the internet.

On March 6, 2007 at 11:28 p.m. EST, MediaSentry detected an individual identified with the username “walkerl5” using a peer-to-peer file sharing program known as Ares. (Connelly Decl. ¶ 9). At the time of the detection, approximately 285 digital audio files, including the 19 Copyrighted Recordings, were contained in the “shared” folder of walker 15’s Ares program, meaning that those audio files were available for download and distribution from his computer to other users of the Ares network. (Id.) MediaSentry ascertained that the Internet Protocol (“IP”) address of the user identified as “walkerl5” was 141.195.141.144. Further investigation revealed that Allegheny College was the Internet Service Provider that had assigned that particular IP address. Allegheny College later identified Defendant as the assignee of that IP address. (Plaintiffs’ Concise Statement, Ex. 5).

On March 6, 2007, MediaSentry downloaded complete copies of ten of the sound recordings contained in Defendant’s shared folder as a sample of the 285 audio files available for download to other Ares users. (Connelly Decl. ¶ 9). MediaSentry also downloaded a complete list of all 285 files in the shared folder on Defendant’s computer at that time. (Connelly Decl. ¶ 9). Finally, MediaSentry captured the “User Log” from Defendant’s IP address. The User Log is a text file containing all of the contents of the user’s shared folder, including the names and sizes of files and additional information about each file referred to as “metadata.” (Connelly Decl. ¶ 12). The information contained in the metadata of an audio file may include keywords, comments and identifiers added by an individual other than the copyright owner. 2 Metadata is automatically trans *463 ferred from one computer to another when the file is downloaded. The UserLog from Defendant’s computer indicates that 17 of the 19 Copyrighted Recording files contain keywords and/or descriptions in the meta-data that would not have been included in sound recordings and compact discs sold through legitimate retail outlets and online sources. (Connelly Decl. ¶ 12; Connelly Deck Ex. C).

On October 18, 2007, Plaintiffs filed a copyright infringement action seeking damages and injunctive relief as a result of the allegedly unauthorized use of Plaintiffs’ sound recordings detected by Media-Sentry. Plaintiffs initially filed this action as a “Doe” lawsuit and subsequently amended the Complaint after Defendant’s identity was obtained from Allegheny College pursuant to a Rule 45 subpoena. In their Amended Complaint, Plaintiffs request injunctive relief pursuant to 17 U.S.C. §§ 502-503, statutory damages in the amount of $750 per song pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), and costs pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 505.

At his deposition, Defendant testified that the Ares program had been installed on his computer by a friend of his and that he “occasionally” used the program. (Walker Deposition, March 13, 2009, pp. 38, 60-62, 65). Defendant admits that he used Ares to search for and download songs from other Ares users. (Walker Depo., pp. 68-69, 71-72, 76, 81, 84, 93, 96). Defendant did not pay for those downloads. (Walker Depo., p. 93, 96). Defendant acknowledged that he placed music into the shared folder of his Ares program and that, by doing so, he was making that music available to other Ares users for illegal download and distribution, although he was not aware of that at the time. (Walker Depo., pp. 91, 93-96). Defendant admits that he did so without the permission of the owners of the copyrights for those sound recordings. (Walker Depo., p. 95).

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704 F. Supp. 2d 460, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31308, 2010 WL 1333147, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/warner-bros-records-inc-v-walker-pawd-2010.