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Protecting Digital Database Content

By J.T. Westermeier
November 30, 2013

The Fourth Circuit's ruling in Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. v. American Home Realty Network, Inc.,'722 F.3d 591'(4th Cir. July 17, 2013), is an important court decision relating to e-commerce and protecting digital database content. The ruling relates to a multiple-listing copyrighted database of real estate listings. In the MRIS'decision, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the validity of MRIS's copyright assignments based on the click-wrap agreement that MRIS used to acquire the ownership of the copyrights in the photographs in the MRIS Database. The Fourth Circuit also affirmed that MRIS's copyright registrations of the MRIS Database included MRIS's authorship in the collective work of real estate listings in the MRIS Database and extended as well to the photographs included in the database for which MRIS acquired the copyrights by assignment. We will discuss the importance of these holdings in this article. [Editor's Note: The author was part of the trial team for Metropolitan Regional Information Systems in this case. Further information relating to the case may be found in Metro Reg'l Info. Sys., Inc. v. Am. Home Realty Network, Inc., 888 F. Supp. 2d 691 (D. Md. 2012).]

The MRIS Database

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