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?

I can't answer that question directly or authoritatively, but I've read a few cases on _patent_ infringement in which a claim of direct infringement was made against the corporation, and a claim of indirect infringement (inducing infringement, if I recall correctly) was made (and stuck) against an officer of the corporation, without attempting to pierce the veil.

The distinction between patent and copyright is, of course, that the patent statute expressly includes a subsection on inducing infringement. However, my recollection is that the word "authorize" in 17 USC 106 has been held to amount to the same thing in the copyright context.

Sorry, I can't cite specific cases, but a shepardization of 35 USC 271(b) should turn them up.

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