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Great Minds v. FedEx Office and Print Servs. Inc.

Copyright Holder's License Must State Limits to Use of Others to Further Licensees' Rights

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*1 Appeal from a judgment entered in the Eastern District of New York (Hurley, J.) dismissing this copyright infringement action filed by Plaintiff-Appellant Great Minds against Defendant-Appellee FedEx Office and Print Services, Inc. (“FedEx”). FedEx allegedly violated Great Minds’ copyright by reproducing Great Minds’ educational materials at the request of school districts, which sought to use the materials for noncommercial purposes under Great Minds’ non-exclusive public license. The public license does not explicitly address whether licensees may engage third parties to provide commercial services that assist the licensees in furthering their own noncommercial uses. We hold that a copyright holder must state in its license any*2

limitation it might wish to impose precluding such an engagement. We decline to infer any such limitation in Great Minds’ public license, and therefore AFFIRM the District Court’s judgment.AFFIRMED.SUSAN L. CARNEY, C.J.Plaintiff-Appellant Great Minds appeals from the March 21, 2017 dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) of its copyright infringement action against FedEx Office and Print Services, Inc. (“FedEx”) in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Hurley, J.). We find that Great Minds’ public license does not explicitly address whether licensees may engage third parties to assist them in exercising their own noncommercial use rights under the license. We hold that, in view of the absence of any clear license language to the contrary, licensees may use third-party agents such as commercial reproduction services in furtherance of their own permitted noncommercial uses. Because FedEx acted as the mere agent of licensee school districts when it reproduced Great Minds’ materials, and because there is no dispute that the school districts themselves sought to use Great Minds’ materials

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