Addressing whether the owner of a media website could invoke the
safe harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA), the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit affirmed the
district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the
owner of Examiner.com, noting that the defendant, an internet
service provider (ISP), did not have actual or circumstantial
knowledge of the plaintiff’s photographs that were posted to
its website by independent contractors. BWP Media USA, Inc. v.
Clarity Digital Group, L.L.C., Case No. 15-1154 (10th Cir.,
Apr. 25, 2016) (Kelly, J).
Examiner.com is a news and
entertainment website that uses independent contractors to write
articles and generate content. BWP Media USA, the owner of rights
in certain celebrity photographs, sued AXS Digital Media Group for
copyright infringement and related claims because
Examiner.com’s independent contractors had posted several of
BWP’s photographs without BWP’s permission. AXS
