Originally Posted by
Justin7
Shaudius,
You might want to reread the judge's opinion. The case wasn't dismissed due to SBR being a foreign entity. It was dismissed because there was no infringement in the United States. *If* there was an infringement (and we do not believe there was), it would have been in Costa Rica, where SBR's servers are located. The judge threw the case out because there was no infringement in the United States, which is required to pursue a copyright claim based on U.S. Law. If a person in Vietnam flagrantly violates a US Copyright in Vietnam, that does not give a cause of action under Copyright/Lanham act.
I have edited my contentions to address these additional concerns of the judge, but I still disagree with his reasoning. He cites a case, Subafilms, Ltd. v. MGM-Pathe Communications Co. which he says stands for the proposition that the copyright act does not extent to cases where the act occurred outside the United States. As I amended to say, that case does not stand for the proposition that acts that occur on the internet for a company that is incorporated outside of the US are not subject to US jurisdiction. Were this to be the case, domestic companies would potentially simply place all their servers overseas to avoid any and all liability for copyright infringement and have the content produced and put on their website by a person in Windsor, Canada for instance, which I don't think the Act in question would support.
Also, the reason that Stevo's complaint in the judge's words focused on the effects of the actions of SBR is because that's the test the courts use for Lanham Act infringement, which the court in this case ignores. Hell, a case that the judge references, Ocean Garden, Inc. v. Marktrade Co actually talks about this effects test. The judge in this case, however, doesn't talk about this established effects test which is to be used by the courts when deciding subject matter jurisdiction in cases that involve foreign defendants except to say that the plaintiff's documents mention effects a lot(which as I said before, no duh they do that's the whole crux of the subject matter jurisdiction test). Like I said before, I would appeal this in a second, i
nfringement in the US is not a requirement of the subject matter jurisdiction test.
Originally Posted by
Justin7
If you saw all the crap they tried to pull, you might reconsider whether attorney fees are warranted. In general, if you lose a copyright case, you owe attorney fees at the judge's discretion. In this case, there were other grounds as well to award attorney fees. I promise, I will do a detailed video on this lawsuit, and cover that angle as well.
They didn't lose the case on the merits. The court refused to hear the case based on lack of jurisdiction. In effect they said the case is not properly before us, therefore we cannot hear it. This is not at all the same as losing a copyright case. The judge can still retain the power to award attorneys fees for a dismissal, but the circumstances would have to be exceedingly bizarre to justify this.