Recently, the Ninth Circuit reinstated a $460,000 jury verdict against print-on-demand site Zazzle, Inc. (“Zazzle”) for willful copyright infringement, putting a final stamp (perhaps) on a long-running dispute that explored important DMCA safe harbor issues for online print-on-demand services. (Greg Young Publishing, Inc. v. Zazzle, Inc., No. 18-55522 (9th Cir. Nov. 20, 2019) (unpublished). The appeals court found that Zazzle’s anti-infringement oversight mechanisms were insufficient during the period of infringement when a number of the plaintiff’s Greg Young Publishing, Inc.’s (“GYPI”) visual art works were uploaded by users onto Zazzle’s site without authorization.

In a novel lawsuit that tests the bounds of service provider liability, two music publishers brought suit against an ISP for contributory copyright infringement for allegedly facilitating infringement by failing to terminate the accounts of broadband subscribers who were purportedly repeat infringers that had unlawfully downloaded copyrighted music from BitTorrent