The Barkley & Associates v. Quizlet case has flown under the radar. But Judge Hsu issued an important summary judgment ruling back in July.
The parties
Barkley “is a continuing education publisher that provides test-preparation materials for graduate nursing students studying to become certified nurse practitioners.”
Quizlet develops an app for people to study, such as in creating flashcards based on content people upload. As the court described: “Defendant is an online service that provides study tools that students and educators use to aid their education across various subjects, including math, literature, languages, science, social science arts and humanities. (JAF ¶ 11; Declaration of Matthew Kosko (“Kosko Decl.”), Dkt. No. 152-4 ¶¶ 5-6) . More than 60 million users interact with Quizlet’s service, most of whom use it for free. (JAF ¶ 12; Kosko Decl. ¶ 5). Users may upload typed material or documents, such as Word documents, slides or PDFs.”
Quizlet relies on LLM models of OpenAI and Google. Quizlet says its terms prohibit users from uploading third-party copyrighted content.
The alleged infringement in use of the quizlet app, which relies on ai models of openai and google
Barkley alleged that users of Quizlet were uploading Barkley study aids into Quizlet. Although Barkley asserted that Quizlet itself was also providing Barkley study aids for users to use, Judge Hsu found no such evidence in the record on summary judgment.
In granting summary judgment to Quizlet, Judge Hsu held:
(1) Quizlet did not engage in volitional conduct for direct infringement because users were the ones who uploaded Barkley materials;
(2) Quizlet was not shown to receive a direct financial benefit from the alleged infringement by users; there was no evidence that Quizlet “attracted or retained subscriptions because of the infringement or lost subscriptions because of [defendant]’s eventual obstruction of the infringement.” quoting Ellison v. Robertson, 357 F.3d 1072, 1079 (9th Cir. 2004).
(3) Quizlet fell within the DMCA safe harbor, Section 512(c).
Barkley has filed a motion for reconsideration, which is still pending and being briefed.
Excerpts:
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DOWNLOAD THE ORDER
