The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] on Tuesday ruled [opinion, PDF] that music companies that previously composed EMI Group, Ltd. can pursue copyright infringement claims against an old online music storage company and its CEO, Michael Robertson [official website]. The companies were appealing from a US district judge’s reduction [JURIST report] of a $48.1 million jury award, asserting that the judge applied too narrow of a definition for safe harbor protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) [text, PDF]. The Second Circuit agreed with the companies [Reuters report]. Part of the original award was reinstated, although the Second Circuit affirmed the reduction of punitive damages. Additionally, the Second Circuit reversed and permitted further claims pursuant to the proper definition of “repeat infringer” for the safe harbor protection.

Copyright issues have become especially prevalent in the digital age. JURIST Guest Columnist Olivier Sylvain of the Fordham University School of Law wrote in 2012 about interpreting the DMCA [JURIST op-ed]. In July the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) [official website] filed a complaint [JURIST report] in the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] challenging the “anti-circumvention” and “anti-trafficking” provisions of the DMCA. In April the US Supreme Court [official website] denied certiorari [JURIST report] from an appeal by three book authors and their advocacy group claiming Google was violating copyright law by scanning millions of books and placing them within an online search engine.