Intellectual Property Copyrights

For this assignment you will post your answers to the questions in each thread prior to 11:59 p.m. ET on Wednesday at 11:59 pm. Additionally, you must respond to at least two of your classmates posts by 11:59 pm ET on Sunday. Your follow-up posts can add additional insight to a classmate’s opinions or can challenge their opinions. Use examples from the readings, or from your own research, to support your views, as appropriate. For your follow-up posts this week, you may wish to visit a couple of the web sites contributed by your classmates and share your opinion of these sites with the class. Be sure to read the follow-up posts to your own posts and reply to any questions or requests for clarification. You are encouraged to conduct research and use other sources to support your answers. Be sure to list your references at the end of your post. References must be in APA citation format. All posts must be a minimum of 250-300 words. All follow-up posts to your classmates must be a minimum of 150 words for each required post.

Read the case study on pp. 118-120 of the textbook and answer the following questions:

1. Why wasn’t eBay held liable for the infringing sales made by users? (HINT: Describe how the elements of the Inwood test apply to eBay’s actions).

2. As an online service provider, to whom to do you owe the greater duty? To your customer who wish to knowingly (i.e. without confusion) buy cheaper, imitation products? Or to unrelated businesses whose valuable intellectual property is being flagrantly violated on your site? Would you take precautions beyond what the law requires to reduce infringing sales?

Read the case study on pp. 164-166 of the textbook and answer the following questions:

3. What duty should OSPs such as Amazon that host content uploaded by others owe to copyright holders? Should such OSPs be required to “police” their websites to detect and prevent copyright infringement?