In re Aimster Copyright Litigation

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In re Aimster Copyright Litigation, 334 F.3d 643 (7th Cir. 2003), was a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit addressed copyright infringement claims brought against Aimster, concluding that a preliminary injunction against the file-sharing service was appropriate. The opinion was written by Judge Richard Posner, known for his publications on law and economics, and followed closely on the heels of the Ninth Circuit's decision in A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. 239 F.3d (9th Cir. 2001).

The defendants argued that, unlike Napster, they designed their technology in such a way that they had no way of monitoring the content of swapped files. The court held that this was willful blindness on the defendant's part, and would not constitute a defense to a claim of contributory infringement.

The court further held that the Sony v. Universal defense of "substantial noninfringing uses" was unavailable because Aimster had shown no evidence that its service was actually used for any noninfringing purposes. Lastly, the court held that the DMCA § 512 "safe harbors" were unavailable because Aimster had done nothing to reasonably comply with Section 512(k)'s requirement that it establish a policy to terminate repeat infringers, and instead encouraged repeat infringement.