Business Law - Several students from a high school in Fairfax County, Virginia,

Question

Business Law -

Several students from a high school in Fairfax County, Virginia, and another in Tucson, Arizona, filed suit against iParadigms for copyright infringement. iParadigms is the company that owns and operates Turnitin, a software program that allows educational institutions to check student term papers against previous students’ papers to detect plagiarism. The students wanted their papers removed from Turnitin because no contract was ever formed to allow their papers to be posted to Turnitin, that there was duress involved when they clicked to submit their papers because they had no choice but to post them in order to turn in their papers, and that they were minors and could not make valid contracts.

Are the students correct? Or was there a valid contract?

Explanation / Answer

Plaintiffs filed a complaint alleging that iParadigms infringed their copyright interests in their works by archiving them in the Turnitin database without their permission.4 The district court granted summary judgment to iParadigms on two bases. First, the court found that the students and iParadigms entered into binding agreements when the students clicked on “I Agree,” and that the agreements shielded iParadigms from liability arising out of plaintiffs' use of the Turnitin website. Furthermore, the court concluded that the disclaimers included on plaintiffs' written submissions did not “modify the Agreement or render it unenforceable.” J.A. 50.5

Second, the court determined that iParadigms' use of each of the plaintiffs' written submissions qualified as a “fair use” under 17 U.S.C. §107 and, therefore, did not constitute infringement. In particular, the court found that the use was transformative because its purpose was to prevent plagiarism by comparative use, and that iParadigms' use of the student works did not impair the market value for high school term papers and other such student works.

iParadigms asserted four counterclaims, but only two are now at issue: (1) that plaintiff A.V. gained unauthorized access to Turnitin by using passwords designated for use by college students enrolled at UCSD, in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”), see 18 U.S.C. §1030; and (2) that plaintiff A.V., based on the aforementioned unauthorized access, violated the Virginia Computer Crimes Act (“VCCA”), see Va.Code Ann. §18.2-152.3.

The district court rejected both counterclaims, granting summary judgment to plaintiff A.V. on the grounds that there was no evidence of actual or economic damages suffered by iParadigms as a result of the alleged violations under the CFAA and the VCCA.

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