Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc.
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Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc. was a copyright case about the Russian language weekly Russian Kurier in New York City that had copied and published from 1992 on more than 500 articles from Russian newspapers and news agency reports of Itar-TASS.
The case started in 1995, when Itar-TASS, several newspapers, and a Russian association of journalists sued Russian Kurier and its owner for coypright infringement before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY).
- Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc. - 886 F. Supp. 1120 (S.D.N.Y. 1995): injunction against Russian Kurier, prohibiting the continued copying of articles.
- Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc. - No. 95 Civ. 2144(JGK) (S.D.N.Y. March 10, 1997): the district court's judgement found Russian Kurier guilty of willful and systematic copyright infringement and fined it US$ 500,000. The court had decided that Russian law was to be applied to determine copyright ownership, and then used U.S. law to judge the infringement.
The defendants appealed against the ruling. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit partly confirmed and partly reversed the district court's ruling and remanded the case for further proceedings.
- Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc. - 153 F.3d 82 (2d Cir. 1998): choice of law affirmed, judgement concerning the entitlement to relief of the newspapers and the journalists' association reversed, and thus the case was remanded for further consideration. The appellate court confirmed the finding that Russian Kurier had engaged in wholesale copyright infringement.
The ruling concerning the choice of law is the relevant case law in the U.S. for international copyright disputes: the law of the country of origin is applied to determine copyright ownership on a work, and then U.S. law is used to judge an alleged infringement.
