Re: personal liability for copyright infringement

On Thu, 9 Oct 1997, Mark Lemley <mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
> Is there any set of circumstances under which a corporate officer can
> be held personally liable for acts of copyright infringement by the
> corporation, *without* piercing the corporate veil?

     Did the corporate officer do the actual act of infringement? If so, the officer would seem to be liable under the copyright act regardless of the fact that the officer was acting as an agent for another party. While corporate officers and other agents may be entitled to indemnity for their actions within the scope of their agency, there is no general immunity for their conduct. See Restatement (Second) of Agency s 343 (Agent's liability) & Id s 438 (Indemnity).

Ralph Clifford
Assoc. Professor
S. New England School of Law
rdc at world dot std dot com
<rdc[_at_]world.std.com> Received on Fri Oct 10 1997 - 13:32:15 GMT