This is a chapter from the U.S. code pertaining to copyright. For the purpose of my research paper only sections 502 & 504 are being focused on.

Section 502 deals with remedies for copyright infringement, specifically injunctions, and is subdivided into two parts. The first one makes it legal for courts to "grant temporary and final injunctions on such terms as it may deem reasonable to prevent or restrain infringement of a copyright." This can be interpreted that courts may rule however is necessarry and within power in order to prevent occurrences of copyright infringement. The second part of section 502 says that any court in the United States, having jurisdiction of the relevant parties, may serve any injunction as described in part a. It also says that once an injunction is served it shall be operative in and shall be enforceable by the United States.

Section 504 deals with damages and profits stemming from copyright infringement. Essentially it provides the legal grounds for an infringer to be financially liable for the copyright owner's actual damages and any additional profits made by the infringer, attributable to the copyrighted work.

These pieces of law are important for my research because they provide the legal grounds for a government or appropriate agencies to go after copyright infringers. Furthermore they provide legal grounds for any theory of indirect liability for infringement; specifically in those cases when an online service provider such as IsoHunt makes profit in the form of advertisement revenue much of which can be attributed to the popularity of copyrighted content found using the service.