United States District Court, D. Connecticut
RULING ON DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO DISMISS
Stefan
R. Underhill United States District Judge.
Plaintiff
Malibu Media, LLC (“Malibu Media”), an
entertainment company that produces pornographic movies,
initiated this copyright infringement action against
defendant John Doe (“Doe”) in which Malibu Media
alleges that Doe “is a persistent online infringer of
[Malibu Media's] copyrights.” Am. Compl., Doc. No.
15-1 at ¶ 2.[1] Doe filed a Motion to Dismiss, arguing
that Malibu Media failed to state a claim against him.
See Mot. to Dism., Doc. No. 29. For the following
reasons, Doe's Motion to Dismiss is
denied.
I.
Standard of Review
A
motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim pursuant to
Rule 12(b)(6) is designed “merely to assess the legal
feasibility of a complaint, not to assay the weight of
evidence which might be offered in support thereof.”
Ryder Energy Distribution Corp. v. Merrill Lynch
Commodities, Inc., 748 F.2d 774, 779 (2d Cir. 1984)
(quoting Geisler v. Petrocelli, 616 F.2d 636, 639
(2d Cir. 1980)). When deciding a motion to dismiss pursuant
to Rule 12(b)(6), the court must accept the material facts
alleged in the complaint as true, draw all reasonable
inferences in favor of the plaintiffs, and decide whether it
is plausible that plaintiffs have a valid claim for relief.
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678-79 (2009);
Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555-56
(2007); Leeds v. Meltz, 85 F.3d 51, 53 (2d Cir.
1996).
Under
Twombly, “[f]actual allegations must be enough
to raise a right to relief above the speculative level,
” and assert a cause of action with enough heft to show
entitlement to relief and “enough facts to state a
claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” 550
U.S. at 555, 570; see also Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679
(“While legal conclusions can provide the framework of
a complaint, they must be supported by factual
allegations.”). The plausibility standard set forth in
Twombly and Iqbal obligates the plaintiff
to “provide the grounds of his entitlement to
relief” through more than “labels and
conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a
cause of action.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555
(quotation marks omitted). Plausibility at the pleading stage
is nonetheless distinct from probability, and “a
well-pleaded complaint may proceed even if it strikes a savvy
judge that actual proof of [the claims] is improbable, and .
. . recovery is very remote and unlikely.” Id.
at 556 (quotation marks omitted).
II.
Discussion
In this
copyright action, Malibu Media alleges that it is the
registered owner of eleven copyrights pertaining to
pornographic movies that Doe illegally distributed. Am.
Compl., Doc. No. 15-1 at ¶¶ 1-2; see also
Ex. A to Am. Compl., Doc. No. 15-2; Ex. B. to Am. Compl.,
Doc. No. 15-3. Specifically, Malibu Media alleges that Doe
used the BitTorrent file distribution network[2] to
“download[], cop[y], and distribute[] a complete copy
of [Malibu Media's] works without authorization.”
Am. Compl., Doc. No. 15-1 at ¶ 23. Doe has moved, pro
se, to dismiss the Amended Complaint against him and argues
that (1) Malibu Media alleges only legal conclusions without
a sufficient factual basis, and (2) the evidence Malibu Media
presented is insufficient to prove copyright infringement.
See Mot. to Dism., Doc. No. 29.
Doe
argues first that “the Amended Complaint contains
merely ‘threadbare' assertions and legal
conclusions that infringement occurred, which fall below the
standard required to survive a Motion to Dismiss for a
BitTorrent copyright infringement lawsuit[.]” Mot. to
Dism., Doc. No. 29 at 4. Specifically, Doe asserts that
Malibu Media “fail[ed] to plead any facts that show
that copyright infringement occurred, or that this
Defendant actually made an unauthorized copy.”
Id. at 3 (emphasis in original). Malibu Media argues
that it has pled a valid and cognizable claim for copyright
infringement. See Opp. to Mot. to Dism., Doc. No.
30.
To
state a claim for copyright infringement, a plaintiff must
demonstrate two things: (1) ownership of a valid copyright;
and (2) infringement of that copyright by the defendant.
See Malibu Media, LLC v. John Does 1-11
(“John Does 1-11”), 2013 WL 3732839, at
*3 (S.D.N.Y. July 16, 2013); see also American
Broadcasting Companies, Inc. v. Flying J, Inc., 2007 WL
583176, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 22, 2007). Rule 8(a) of the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires that a complaint
include a “short and plain” statement of the
claim at issue. Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a). For purposes of a
copyright infringement case, a plaintiff must allege:
“1) which specific original works are the subject of
the copyright claim, 2) that plaintiff owns the copyrights in
those works, 3) that the copyrights have been registered in
accordance with the statute, and 4) by what acts during what
time the defendant infringed that copyright.”
Therrien v. Martin, 2007 WL 3102181, at *4 (D. Conn.
Oct. 19, 2007) (internal citation and quotation marks
omitted).
Here,
Malibu Media sufficiently alleges that it is the copyright
owner of the eleven works at issue. See Am. Compl.,
Doc. No. 15-1 at ¶ 3 (“Plaintiff is the registered
owner of the copyrights set forth on Exhibit B.”);
id. at ¶ 19 (“Each digital media file as
identified by the file hash listed on Exhibit A correlates to
a copyrighted film owned by Plaintiff, as set forth on
Exhibit B.”); id. at ¶ 21 (“Each
digital media file as identified by the file hash listed on
Exhibit A has been verified to contain a digital copy of a
movie that is identical … to Plaintiff's
corresponding original copyrighted work listed on Exhibit
B.”); see also Ex. B to Am. Compl., Doc. No.
15-3 (providing registration number, date of first
publication, and registration date for each of the eleven
works at issue). Further, Malibu Media sufficiently alleges
that Doe infringed those copyrights. Specifically, the
Amended Complaint alleges that Malibu Media's
investigator, IPP International UG, connected to Doe's IP
address and downloaded one or more pieces of each of the
eleven works listed in Exhibit A. Am. Compl. at ¶¶
17-19. Moreover, the Amended Complaint alleges that the
digital files received by the investigator from Doe's IP
address were BitTorrent files and that Doe “us[ed]
BitTorrent [to] cop[y] and distribute[] the constituent
elements of each” of the eleven works, without Malibu
Media's authorization, permission, or consent.
Id. at ¶¶ 20-21, 30-31. Further, the
“hit dates” establish a general time frame for
the alleged infringement. See Ex. A to Am. Compl,
Doc. No. 15-2 (establishing hit dates for file hashes between
June 16, 2018 and September 16, 2018).
Malibu
Media has provided sufficient detail regarding its ownership
of valid copyrights, and the acts Doe took to allegedly
infringe upon those copyrights. Accepting those factual
allegations as true, as I must, Malibu Media's Amended
Complaint sufficiently states a cognizable claim for
copyright infringement. See, e.g., Patrick Collins, Inc.
v. John Doe 1, 945 F.Supp.2d 367, 375 (E.D.N.Y. 2013)
(“the Plaintiff has adequately pled a plausible claim
of copyright infringement by providing sufficient detail as
to the acts the John Doe Defendant took in infringing the
copyright, including going to a torrent site; participating
in a swarm; and copying a piece of the copyrighted work
identified by a unique hash number”); In re Malibu
Media Copyright Infringement Litigation, 2016 WL 926906,
at *4 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 11, 2016) (“Malibu Media has pled
that it received at least one piece of each allegedly
infringed work from the defendants, and it has pled that
defendants' conduct occurred persistently, rather than in
an isolated event. At the Rule 12 stage, the complaint has
pled facts that plausibly demonstrate that the subscribers
identified in the complaints committed the alleged
infringement.”). Doe's argument that Malibu Media
failed to establish that he infringed on its
copyrights, but alleges only that his IP address was used is
unavailing at this stage of litigation. See Mot. to
Dism., Doc. No. 29 at 3. Courts have consistently
“found copyright infringement claims to be sufficiently
pled where the defendant was only identified by an IP
address.” John Does 1-11, 2013 WL 3732839, at
*4 (collecting cases).
Further,
Doe takes issue with the way in which Malibu Media conducted
its investigation into the alleged copyright infringement.
See Mot. to Dism., Doc. No. 29 at 4-7. Specifically,
Doe asserts that Exhibit A, which purports to show the hash
values of downloaded materials that match Malibu Media's
copyrights, is merely “a snapshot of the alleged
evidence … [and is] insufficient to establish that
this Defendant made a complete copy of any of [Malibu
Media's] copyrighted works, or even a substantial portion
consisting of more than de minimis copyright
infringement.” Id. at 6-7. Malibu Media argues
that its investigative methods are reliable and sufficient to
identify Doe as an infringer. See Opp. to Mot. to
Dism., Doc. No. 30. Courts have determined that, at the
Motion to Dismiss stage, it is enough for a plaintiff to
plead that it received “at least one piece” of
the copyrighted work. See In re Malibu Media, 2016
WL 926906, at *4; see also Malibu Media LLC v.
Gilvin, 2014 WL 1260110, at *2 (N.D. Ind. Mar. 26, 2014)
(Malibu Media's “allegations that its investigator
connected to a computer associated with Defendant's
internet account and was able to download bits of
Plaintiff's copyrighted movies from it supports a
plausible claim that Defendant infringed on Plaintiff's
copyrighted works by copying and distributing portions of its
movies” (emphasis added)). Accordingly, Malibu
Media's allegations establish a plausible claim that Doe
infringed upon its copyrights.
III.
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