On March 19, 2014, in Capitol Records, Inc. v. MP3tunes, LLC, a jury sitting in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York found MP3tunes, LLC and its founder, Michael Robertson (defendants), liable for infringing the copyrighted works of EMI, Inc., and other record labels and music publishers (plaintiffs). MP3tunes operated now-defunct websites that allowed users to, among other things:

Notably, the jury found MP3tunes and Robertson liable for contributory copyright infringement and ineligible for Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbor protection because they were willfully blind concerning users' copyright infringement.

Previously, the judge in this case had issued an May 14, 2013 opinion (, 107 U.S.P.Q.2d 1770 (S.D.N.Y., May 14, 2013)) withdrawing his grant of summary judgment largely in favor of defendants on the issues of willful blindness and red-flag knowledge in light of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit's decision in Viacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc (676 F.3d 19 (2d Cir. 2012)). The judge found that under Viacom's direction that district courts should engage in explicit factfinding on the issue of willful blindness, a jury could reasonably interpret several documents in the record as imposing a duty to make further inquiries into specific and identifiable instances of possible infringement. For more on the SDNY's 2013 decision in this case, see Legal Update, SDNY Reconsiders MP3tunes in Light of Second Circuit's Viacom v. YouTube Decision.

Viacom and YouTube's longstanding lawsuit came to an end last week with an announcement of a settlement. For analysis of the Second Circuit's Viacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc. decision, see Legal Update, Second Circuit Reinstates Viacom v. YouTube, Addressing Contours of DMCA Safe Harbor.