US Copyright Group Reduces P2P Lawsuits to Just 140

Complies with U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer’s order that it submit a revised list of Defendants it plans to sue, this time only including those that “whom it reasonably believes the Court has personal jurisdiction.” Amended list now has 139 unidentified IP addresses, down from the initial 4,577, and just one named defendant – Adrienne Neal.

The US Copyright Group has submitted its revised list of BitTorrent users it plans to sue as ordered late last month by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer. She gave the USCG until December 6th to identify the Defendants it plans to sue, this time including only those “whom it reasonably believes the Court has personal jurisdiction” over.

That ruling was a dramatic blow to the US Copyright Group’s hopes of a single lawsuit that would help expedite the process and reduce the cost of litigation.

That list now stands at a mere 140, comprised of 139 Does and just one named defendant – Adrienne Neal. That’s down from the initial 4,577 it submitted to the court.

From the amended complaint:

Venue in this District is proper under 28 US.C. § 1391(b) and/or 28 US.C. §1400(a). The named Defendant resides in this District. Although the true identity of each remaining Doe Defendant is unknown to the Plaintiff at this time, on information and belief, each remaining Doe Defendant may be found in this District and/or a substantial part of the acts of infringement complained of herein occurred in this District. On information and belief, personal jurisdiction in this District is proper because each named Defendant and each remaining Doe Defendant, without consent or permission of the Plaintiff as exclusive rights owner, distributed and offered to distribute over the Internet copyrighted works for which the Plaintiff has exclusive rights in this District.

The remaining IP addresses not a party of the revised lawsuit have been dismissed “with prejudice,” thereby reserving the right of the USCG to sue the accused in the appropriate jurisdiction. The USCG, if you recall, has already lined up more than 15 law firms around the country to begin filing individual lawsuits against people in their respective areas who have refused to settle out court.

However, even the amended list includes a number of IP addresses well beyond U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer’s jurisdiction so it’ll be interesting to see whether she accepts it or not.

Here’s a few samples from the list of Does:

• 66.91.109.205 – Honolulu, HA
• 68.58.154.168 – Chicago, IL
• 76.181.251.207 – Columbus, OH
• 76.87.47.162 – Carson, CA

In the filing the USCG rehashes the same argument it made earlier this year when it began the campaign, that each BitTorrent user, by being part of a swarm, is part of the same “transaction” responsible for sharing copyrighted material.

“Essentially, because of the nature of the swarm downloads…every infringer is simultaneously stealing copyrighted material from many ISPs in numerous jurisdictions around the country,” it says in its brief.

As was the case before, and likely the argument it will make to Judge Collyer, the USCG cited Rule 20 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure – “Permissive Joinder of Parties.” It says that people may be joined into a single lawsuit if a defendant has a “right to relief” from the “same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions” that they were jointly part of.

The USCG seems intent on using Rule 20 in the case, though Judge Collyer has already asked it to make a convincing case as to why the claims against people who don’t reside in the DC area shouldn’t be dismissed.

Stay tuned.

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ACHTE-NEUNTE-v.-Neal-et-al-SAC