Page:Hotaling et al. v. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.djvu/3

Rh ARGUED: Hunter Craycroft Harrison, Jr., McLean, VA, for Appellants. Michael Abbott Grow, Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease, Washington, DC, for Appellee.

Before HALL and LUTTIG, Circuit Judges, and BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Senior Judge BUTZNER wrote the majority opinion, in which Judge LUTTIG joined. Judge HALL wrote a dissenting opinion.

BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge:

In this appeal we hold that a library distributes a published work, within the meaning of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101 et seq., when it places an unauthorized copy of the work in its collection, includes the copy in its catalog or index system, and makes the copy available to the public. Because the district court ruled that these actions, by themselves, were insufficient to constitute distribution, we reverse the district court’s summary judgment for the library and remand this case for further proceedings.

Summary judgment is appropriate only if the record reveals no genuine issues of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). We review the entry of summary judgment de novo, applying the same standard as the district court. ''Stone v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co.'', 105 F.3d 188, 191 (4th Cir.1997).

We present the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, Donna Hotaling, William Hotaling, Jr., James Maher, and Dorothy Sherwood (collectively the Hotalings). See Yarnevic v. Brink’s, Inc., 102 F.3d 753, 756 (4th Cir.1996). The Hotalings compiled and copyrighted a number of genealogical research materials. The validity of the copyrights is not at issue at this stage of the litigation. The Hotaling research materials were published in microfiche form and marketed by All-Ireland Heritage, Inc. At some point, most likely between 1985 and 1989, the defendant, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Church), acquired a single legitimate copy of the microfiche and added it to its main library’s collection in Salt Lake City, Utah. Sometime before 1992, the Church made microfiche copies of the works without the Hotalings’ permission and sent the copies to several of its branch libraries, located throughout the country. The legitimately acquired copy had a black background, and the copies that were made by the Church had purple backgrounds.

In July, 1991, Donna Hotaling learned that the Church was making copies and placing them in its branch libraries. She contacted the Church and demanded that it stop this activity. After receiving her complaint, the Church recalled and destroyed many of the copies that it had made. According to the