Is Accessing A Website Using Someone Else's Login Copyright Infringement?

from the novel-arguments dept

Damon calls our attention to a rather novel (and potentially far reaching) claim of copyright infringement by a real estate information company called CoStar. CoStar provides subscription-based real estate information, which companies pay hundreds of dollars a month for in subscription fees. Not surprisingly, some customers have passed around their login information to others, leading to the lawsuit. However, rather than going after them for breach of contract or theft of services, CoStar is claiming that both handing over your login and accessing the content with someone else's login is copyright infringement. Thus, CoStar is asking for the statutory maximum of $150,000 for every access. Of course, there are already questions about whether that $150k number is constitutionally acceptable, but this lawsuit seems like a stretch no matter what.

I could understand a breach of contract claim, but CoStar is saying that anyone who passed on their logins or accessed the content using someone else's login effectively made an "unauthorized copy" of the content, which definitely seems like quite a stretch in interpreting copyright law. You have to wonder if the firm in question will fight back or settle, but if this case moves forward and accessing content under someone else's login is considered copyright infringement, potentially subject to fines of up to $150,000 per instance, it could lead to some fairly nasty unintended consequences. What if you use someone else's computer and they've logged themselves into a site with a cookie? If you visit that site, are you guilty of copyright infringement? This seems to clearly go beyond copyright's intended purpose.

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