Patent Infringement - Internet and Software Law - Past Paper, Exams of Law

Download Patent Infringement - Internet and Software Law - Past Paper and more Exams Law in PDF only on Docsity! EXAM#____________ Page 1 of 4 Wilson: Internet and Software Law Spring 2010 Final Examination Software and Internet Law (Law 743) Professor Wilson Spring 2010 1. You have three (3) hours to complete this exam. 2. This is an open book exam. 3. This exam consists of three (3) essay questions. Please write your response in the blue books provided. Please write clearly. Write on every other line and every other page to permit instructor comments. 4. Write your exam number on your exam envelope. Put your correct class section and student exam # at the top of this page, each page of questions and each blue book. Do not use your name, student ID number or Social Security Number on any exam materials. 5. At the conclusion of the exam, return all test materials, including blue books, scratch paper, and this exam packet to the envelope and submit it to the proctor. DO NOT seal the envelope. Students who do not return all exam materials at the end of the exam may not be graded. GOOD LUCK! EXAM#____________ Page 2 of 4 Wilson: Internet and Software Law Spring 2010 Essay Question 1 (40 points) Recommended Time: 70 minutes Music Helper has created and maintains an information location tool and social networking Web site. Visitors to the musichelper.com Web site can use a search engine on the site to locate music files located on third party Web sites. Once the files are found, visitors can use the Music Player on the Music Helper Web site to listen to the files by streaming them. And users can create their own individualized Music Helper Web page with hyperlinks to music files discovered by the user, and add those hyperlinks to the Music Helper search index. Music Helper also enables users to create a playlist with files they have found using the search engine, and to create a hyperlink to the file on the third party site. These playlists make it easy for users to play songs that they have previously found. Users can also share those playlists with other users, and can browse playlists on other members’ pages. Music Helper knows that some of its users may use the Music Helper information location tool and Music Player to stream or provide hyperlinks to illegally posted music files. However, Music Helper has no specific awareness of any such activities, and Music Helper’s Terms of Use requires users to agree when they first sign up to use the site that they will not stream music from illegally posted files. Music Helper does not itself host music files; it merely allows the files to be streamed through its Music Player. However, in order to facilitate efficient streaming of music files, Music Helper makes temporary copies of a certain portion of the music files identified by links in its search index, so that users who call up a song can stream the music from the stored (or cached) copy rather than the original source. Music Helper stores these songs for no more than a week at a time, and automatically checks daily by “pinging” the original file to determine whether links to the songs it has cached remain active. Thus, in the event a copyright owner has elected to delete a music file, Music Helper’s daily check would discover it had been removed, and would delete the corresponding cached copy. Although Music Helper does not allow users to store music files on its Web site, if Music Helper receives proper notice of a link to an infringing file in its search index, Music Helper will immediately take down the link in response to a properly submitted DMCA take-down request. After sending a cease and desist letter to Music Helper and to VC+, which owns 90% of Music Helper, demanding that they disable the Music Helper site, several music publishers (including Sony Music) filed suit against both Music Helper and VC+. Please answer the following questions: 1) what claims might plaintiffs have against each defendant (be specific); 2) what defenses would the defendants have; and 3) how would the case likely come out?