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Franklin Covey sues Lycos for posting of 7 Habits book

By Evan Brown

FranklinCovey v. Lycos, No. 07-cv-00974 (D. Utah, filed December 17, 2007). [Download the Complaint]

FranklinCovey owns the copyright in the bestselling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It has sued Lycos, owner of AngelFire, for copyright infringement, claiming direct and/or secondary liability for the posting of an entire copy of the work online.

The allegations are a bit ambiguous as to who FranklinCovey thinks actually posted the work online. In some parts of the complaint it accuses Lycos as having posted it, but at the same time, the allegations describe the multiple DMCA takedown notices that FranklinCovey sent, as if their theory is that Lycos is a provider for third party content.

It’s an allegation as to the DMCA that raised my eyebrows when reading the complaint. Here’s what Paragraph 34 says:

“Based on Defendants? failure to expeditiously remove or disable access to this infringement, notwithstanding their actual knowledge thereof, Defendants have waived any defense to liability they may otherwise have had pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 512 or otherwise.”

It’s the word “otherwise” that particularly piqued my interest.  Is this true? By failing to comply with a DMCA takedown notice, has Lycos really waived its defense to infringement liability?

Here’s what 17 USC 512(l) says:

(l) Other defenses not affected.–The failure of a service provider’s conduct to qualify for limitation of liability under this section shall not bear adversely upon the consideration of a defense by the service provider that the service provider’s conduct is not infringing under this title or any other defense.

Thoughts, anyone?

Full post as published by InternetCases.com on December 19, 2007 (boomark / email).