Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York just did the right thing in denying “expedited discovery” which would allow Malibu Media, LLC to send a subpoena to the Time Warner Cable ISP, thus preventing Malibu Media from learning the identity of the John Doe Defendant.
The copyright troll blogosphere is no doubt about to erupt with this story — in fact, the Twitter feed is already bustling with comments from Sophisticated Jane Doe (@FightCopytrolls), Raul (@Raul15340965), and other bloggers. Bottom line, a United States District Court Judge just said “no” to allowing Malibu Media’s extortion scheme to proceed.*
Judges are the gatekeepers of the law, and the reason these cases have been allowed to fester and infest our legal system is because judges [until now] have been asleep. They have blindly allowed the plaintiff copyright trolls the ability to wreak havoc on the accused downloaders by allowing the copyright trolls access to them so that they can intimidate, harass, embarrass, and threaten to deplete all of the funds of the accused defendant’s [sometimes life] savings in order to avoid the costly alternative of litigating a copyright infringement lawsuit.
For the purposes of this article, I am focusing on two points which I found to be interesting in today’s Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04369; NYSD) ruling (see Judge’s order here).
RULING 1: OBSCENE PORNOGRAPHY MIGHT NOT BE ELIGIBLE FOR COPYRIGHT PROTECTION.
This ruling (based on Judge Marrero’s Next Phase Distribution, Inc. v. John Does 1-27 (Case No. 284 F.R.D. 165, 171 (S.D.N.Y. 2012)) case is the “third rail” issue in copyright troll litigation. Do copyright rights extend to pornographic materials? What if they are considered “scenes a fair,” or scenes which contain the same “roles” and “characters” as in other films — are these considered copyrightable (keep the same story, scene, genre, and roles, but switch the actors)? Are these works considered art? And, what happens if the copyrighted film violates one or more obscenity laws — does that film still have copyright protection?
These are just questions, and to date, they are unresolved. However, the fact that Judge Hellerstein brought it up means that he is seriously considering whether this should be a basis to deny copyright infringement claims against John Doe Defendants.
Reference: See my 8/14/2012 article entitled, “How to make bittorrent cases go away once and for all…” (Reason 3)
RULING 2: MALIBU MEDIA ACCUSES A JOHN DOE DEFENDANT, BUT PROVIDES **NO EVIDENCE** THAT THE “JOHN DOE” DOWNLOADER IS THE ACCOUNT HOLDER. THUS, THERE IS **NO BASIS** FOR SUING THE ACCOUNT HOLDER OR IMPLICATING THE ACCOUNT HOLDER AS BEING THE “JOHN DOE” DOWNLOADER DEFENDANT IN THE LAWSUIT.
This has always been a blatantly simple, and yet tough argument to describe. But when you think of it, the simplicity — once it jumps out at you with the “aha!” moment — is charming and unforgettable.
In short, Malibu Media can prove that SOMEONE downloaded one or more of their titles. However, they do no prove (or even assert any evidence) to indicate that it was the account holder who downloaded the copyrighted film… so what legal basis does Malibu Media have to sue the account holder?? Judge’s answer: None. In order to make a “prima facie” case that would convince a judge to rubber-stamp a subpoena permitting the copyright holders to force an ISP to turn over the identity of the account holder (whether or not he is the actual downloader), the copyright holder needs to provide some “link” identifying the actual downloader as being the account holder. No link is ever provided in Malibu Media’s pleadings, and thus in legal terms, the pleading “fails” and the copyright holder’s request for expedited discovery should be denied.
That’s it. My two cents, for what it is worth.
Congratulations to District Judge Hellerstein for a brave and correct ruling on the law. Now if all of the other judges in the Eastern District of New York would fall in line with this ruling and abandon the “my court, my world, my rules” mentality, we can put an end to these cases once and for all.
Additional Reference:
Fight Copyright Trolls (SJD): Citing previous Malibu Media’s sheer abuse of court process, New York judge denies early discovery
*UPDATE (7/7, 6:30am): I am surprised that there are not more articles on this topic. This should be all over the news for other NY judges (and judges in other federal district courts) to see. Unfortunately, if other judges do not see [and act on] this ruling, then it gathers dust and it has little-to-no effect on future Malibu Media, LLC lawsuits. …and the scheme continues unhindered.
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OTHER RECENT MALIBU MEDIA (NYSD) CASES:
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04713)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04717)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04720)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 7:15-cv-04725)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 7:15-cv-04728)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04729)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04730)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04731)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04735)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04736)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04738)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 7:15-cv-04732)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 7:15-cv-04733)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 7:15-cv-04734)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04741)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04742)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04743)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 7:15-cv-04739)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 7:15-cv-04740)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 7:15-cv-04744)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 7:15-cv-04745)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 7:15-cv-04367)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 7:15-cv-04374)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 7:15-cv-04370)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 7:15-cv-04377)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04368)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04369)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04371)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04373)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04378)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04380)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04381)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-04382)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-03130)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-03135)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-03137)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-03138)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-03143)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-03144)
Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe (Case No. 1:15-cv-03134)
OHAI!
One teensy little quibble…
“In short, Malibu Media can prove that SOMEONE downloaded one or more of their titles.”
Actually using their current system they can not offer any proof of this, and the Judge specifically mentioned a prior ruling about how a single bit does not a complete movie make. They only track, IIRC from the ruling from their own words, a single exchange of bit(s). A single piece can’t be a true copy or even really watchable by a downloader. They record single exchanges of data, and not the entirety of the transfer.
Someone might have a change of heart about pursing the content in that way and end the transfer long before completion.
Someone might notice that the blind link they followed was not a copy of ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and terminated the transfer.
One can not be sure from the list of “hits” on a spreadsheet unless they monitored someone in the swarm from start to completion.
I remember the dark ages before the streamlining when some poor soul would stay in the swarm to obtain a full copy, and then compare them visually & in other ways to establish that the content was a copy of the work. That is many bad films to have to watch over and over.
Agree completely. I stand corrected.
TAC,
It’s even worse than that. MM/Patrick Paige/Freaking Germans cannot “track, IIRC from the ruling from their own words, a single exchange of bit(s).” Oh, no, not at all! Those exchanges take place between Peers, and there is no way (other than installing bots on the defendant’s PC) that they can definitively show that such an exchange occurred.
The only thing that MM/PP/FG can do is directly download, from the defendant’s own computer, one or more bits of a piece of a file identified by a torrent. The defendant may have left the torrent up in their torrent program, though the file itself might only be partially there. They cannot show that the defendant has a complete file without downloading the complete file from the defendant’s computer, which is highly unlikely, since most torrent programs will set ‘leechers’ (1) to the lowest bandwith, typically 10kbps. Downloading a 30 minute HD film at those rates takes forever. Without showing that they have the COMPLETE film, a copyright action must fail.
(1) The MM/PP/FG folks MUST be leechers–that is, BitTorrent participants that only download but never upload. If they do upload/share their fragments in order to up their transfer speeds, then it can be argued that they are materially participating in the distribution of their files, hence, they have given up their copyright.