Notorious copyright ‘porn troll’ Malibu Media LLC, an adult film company, struck out in a Florida court last week when a Florida District Court Judge determined that an IP address does not identify a specific single individual guilty of copyright infringement. US District Judge Ursula Ungaro dismissed the lawsuit that Malibu Media had filed against an alleged movie pirate at IP address 174.61.81.171.


In the court document, it stated that on March 5, 2014, the Court issued an Order for the plaintiff, Malibu Media LLC, to show good cause why the Court should reasonably rely on their usage of geolocation or other technologies to establish the identity of the Defendant, John Doe at IP address 174.61.81.171, and that the “Defendant may be found within this district; and to show good cause why this case should not be dismissed for improper venue; and show good cause as to why this case should not be dismissed for improper venue.” The judge would not issue a subpoena until they could prove this.

Malibu Media pleaded its case and attempted to detail how they can actually trace an IP address back to the alleged pirate. They claimed that the geolocation tracing process used "has always been 100 percent accurate when traced to the Southern District of Florida." Malibu Media also mentioned that their methods and procedures used are the same ones used by law enforcement.

Seemingly unimpressed with Malibu Media’s technical jargon argument, Judge Ungaro stated, ”Plaintiff has shown that the geolocation software can provide a location for an infringing IP address; however, Plaintiff has not shown how this geolocation software can establish the identity of the Defendant. There is nothing that links the IP address location to the identity of the person actually downloading and viewing Plaintiff's videos, and establishing whether that person lives in this district. For example, when arguing that this IP address is not a coffee shop or open Wi-Fi network, Plaintiff points to the timing of the alleged infringement and the fact that the internet service provider typically provides internet to residences."

"Plaintiff then argues that a coffee shop owner could possibly identify the Defendant. Even if this IP address is located within a residence, the geolocation software cannot identify who has access to that residence's computer and who would actually be using it to infringe Plaintiff's copyright. The Court finds that Plaintiff has not established good cause for the Court to reasonably rely on Plaintiff's usage of geolocation to establish the identity of the Defendant. The Court also finds that Plaintiff has not established good cause as to why this action should not be dismissed for improper venue.”

Malibu Media had previously been sanctioned in September of 2013 for trying to embarrass defendants, and Judge Conley sanctioned Malibu $200 per case for a total of $2,200 at that time.

In December of 2013, the Electronic Frontier Foundation fought back against Malibu Media in an argument that stated, “EFF fought back against a particularly nasty copyright troll tactic recently. Lawyers representing the adult film producer Malibu Media, LLC file long lists of movie titles on the public record, accusing an Internet subscriber of copying those movies illegally. Among the titles on that list are many adult films with very embarrassing titles. The lawyers then send a copy of the court filing to the subscriber along with a demand for money. The threat is obvious - either pay up, point a finger at a friend or family member, or be named in a public lawsuit as a habitual user of hard-core porn. Faced with these threats, many people pay thousands to the lawyers to make the threat go away - whether they were responsible for illegal downloading or not. But more and more judges are catching on to copyright trolls' abuses of the justice system.” Malibu Media has already filed hundreds of lawsuits against alleged copyright infringers.

“Copyright trolls” such as Malibu Media, the now non-existent Prenda Law, and even the former ACS Law Firm from the U.K. have often used scare tactics and tried to base their “John Doe” lawsuits on a single IP address, or even a range of IP addresses. This case from last week shows that the judge used good logical reasoning to dismiss the case rather than issue a subpoena for the alleged infringer’s information from the Internet service provider. We’re really hoping this is yet a another trend setter case for the future which may start deterring the “copyright trolls”.

In January, another similar case was dismissed in Washington. In a ruling out of the Federal District Court in Washington State, the court granted the defense a motion to dismiss their case in Elf-Man, LLC v. Eric Cariveau on the basis that the “Plaintiff has not alleged that a named defendant has the BitTorrent “client” application on her computer, that the download or distribution is in some way linked to the individual subscriber (as opposed to her account), that the defendant has acknowledged personal involvement in the download and distribution, or even circumstances which might increase the likelihood that the subscriber is the infringer (such as defendant’s living arrangements or network details).”

As “Fight Copyright Trolls” stated this past weekend, “If a lawyer clogs understaffed courts with lawsuits that have nothing to do with advancing justice but rather with stuffing his pockets, sooner or later the pendulum moves in the opposite direction.” We also hope that type of scenario will be more of what we see in the future; judges seeing right through the copyright trolls resulting in more dismissed cases, and/or lawyers realizing their arguments will no longer hold up in court.