Personal Jurisdiction and File-sharing

Virgin Records American, Inc. v. Does (D.D.C. April 18, 2006)

Plaintiffs, who are major recording companies owning copyrights in sound recordings, served a subpoena on Verizon. The purpose of the subpeona was to determine the identities of 35 Verizon subscribers involved in allegedly infringing file-sharing activities.

Upon learning of the subpoena, Defendant Doe #18 filed a Motion to Quash the subpoena issued to his/her IP address. Defendant Doe #18 argument was that “I do not have sufficient contacts with the District of Columbia to justify requiring me to respond to this lawsuit outside my jurisdiction and so far away from my home.”

The Court rejected the motion as a result of the following analysis:

”A Full Consideration of Personal Jurisdiction is Premature”

In numerous cases across a variety of jurisdictions, Doe defendants-and amici, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Public Citizen-have raised the same personal jurisdiction argument that Defendant Doe # 18 raises now. In each case, courts have rejected such an argument as “premature,” even where the Doe defendants assert that they live outside the court's jurisdiction and have minimal or no contacts with that jurisdiction.

These rulings that such a motion is “premature” are predicated upon the important fact that a court cannot render any kind of ruling on personal jurisdiction or catalog a defendant's contacts with the relevant jurisdiction before the defendant has actually been named. . . . . Simply, the parties cannot formally litigate any aspect of personal jurisdiction until the defendant has actually been identified. Indeed, the D.C. Circuit has stressed that “[a] plaintiff faced with a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction is entitled to reasonable discovery, lest the defendant defeat the jurisdiction of a federal court by withholding information on its contacts with the forum.”

”Plaintiffs Have Made a Prima Facie Showing of Personal Jurisdiction Over Defendant Doe # 18”

For the ensuing reasons, the court also concluded that the plaintiffs had successfully made a prima facie showing of personal jurisdiction over Defendant Doe #18:

First, it is undisputed that Defendant Doe # 18 contracted with a District of Columbia-based ISP, i.e. Verizon, and used Verizon's facilities allegedly to commit copyright infringement. As such, it is arguable that this Court has jurisdiction over Defendant Doe # 18 under the District of Columbia's long-arm statute, which confers jurisdiction over any person or business “transacting any business in the District of Columbia” or “causing tortious injury in the District of Columbia by an act or omission in the District of Columbia.”

Second, and more importantly, regardless of his/her place of residence, Defendant Doe # 18 has clearly directed tortious activity into the District of Columbia. It is alleged that Defendant, without the permission or consent of Plaintiffs, offered to the public-including persons within this jurisdiction-Plaintiffs' copyrighted sound recordings; in exchange, Defendant Doe # 18 was able to download recordings made available by others, including persons within this jurisdiction. As the Third Circuit has stressed, those transmitting copyrighted works nationwide “can anticipate that infringement may result at places remote” from the place of origin. Indeed, this court has specifically held that “the download of music files by [defendant] constitutes transacting business in the District” of Columbia and is sufficient to establish personal jurisdiction.

Third, by installing P2P software and logging onto a P2P network, each defendant transformed his or her computer into an interactive Internet site, allowing others to complete transactions by downloading copyrighted works over the Internet. Importantly, each Defendant was disseminating copyrighted works to anyone that wanted them and was downloading copyrighted works from others who offered them-including residents of this jurisdiction. Engaging in such “interactive” electronic transactions provides the sort of “continuous” and “systematic” contacts with the District of Columbia that the Gorman court and others have recognized as sufficient to support this Court's jurisdiction over Defendant Doe # 18. See Gorman, 293 F.3d at 511-13; see also Zippo Mfg. Co. v. Zippo Dot Com, Inc., 952 F.Supp. 1119, 1124 (W.D.Pa.1997) (distinguishing between passive websites which generally do not provide sufficient contacts with a forum to justify an assertion of jurisdiction with “interactive” websites which generally do support an assertion of jurisdiction).

Holding: The Court denied without prejudice Defendant Doe # 18's Motion to Quash.