ABKCO Music, Inc., et al. v. William Sagan, et al.

Respondent William Sagan purchased thousands of bootleg concert tapes that were made by various concert promoters and venue operators without the consent of either the performers or the owners of the copyrights in the musical works being performed. He bought them forewarned about the lack of necessary authorizations and licenses. Undeterred, Sagan used his position as the president, CEO, and sole owner of respondent Norton LLC to commercially exploit those bootleg concert recordings on the Internet on a massive scale. Sagan hired his brother-in-law and specifically directed him to digitize the tapes and make them available for download or streaming online, eventually putting tens of thousands of concert recordings up for sale—all without licenses for the copyrights in the underlying musical works. The district court held that Sagan was directly liable for copyright infringement for acquiring the bootleg recordings, developing the plan to digitize them and distribute them online, and instructing his brother-inlaw which recordings to post online. The Second Circuit reversed, concluding that Sagan was not liable for direct infringement because “direct liability attaches only to ‘the person who actually presses the button,’” and Sagan instructed his employee to post the recordings instead of doing so himself. The question presented is: Whether direct liability for copyright infringement is limited to the person who actually “presses the button” to make the infringing copies.