(United States Ninth Circuit) - In a copyright case involving the Usenet,an international collection of organizations and individuals whose computers connect to one another and exchange messages posted by Usenet users, the district court's judgment in favor of defendants is affirmed where: 1) the volitional conduct requirement was not met on plaintiff's theories that the defendants directly infringed its display rights and distribution rights; 2) the volitional conduct requirement also was not met as to the claim that defendant directly infringed on plaintiff's lawful to reproduce by uploading infringing content onto the Usenet or defendant's servers; 3) defendant was not liable for contributory copyright infringement because plaintiff failed to raise a triable issue of fact as to whether defendant materially contributed to or induced infringement of plaintiff's copyrights; and 4) the vicarious infringement claim was properly dismissed where plaintiff failed to demonstrate a causal link between the infringing activities and a financial benefit to defendant.
Source: findlaw.com