Malibu Media Tests Northern District of Ohio Waters

In late June 2014, Malibu Media LLC entered the waters in Northern District of Ohio filing 16 new copyright infringement lawsuits. The Northern District of Ohio (NDOH) has seemed somewhat hostile to copyright trolls.

For example, one federal judge, James S. Gwin,  sua sponte severed and dismissed all 197 doe defendants in four consolidated cases involving Safety Point Products in 2013 (1:12-cv-02812, 1:12-CV-2820, 1:12-CV-2831, 1:12-CV-2894).  The court expressed concern with respect to the business model of copyright trolling as few cases were litigated in the past, the fairness of applying “joinder” to these defendants, and the fact that plaintiff had escaped paying over $60,000 in filing fees by attempting to join these many defendants in just four separate lawsuits.

These new Malibu Media LLC lawsuits accuse defendants of using BitTorrent and the internet to illegally obtain their adult movies (originating from the X-Art website) without paying for a license and thus violating the US Copyright Act.

The same federal judge who dismissed all 197 doe defendants in the Safety Point litigation mentioned above, James S. Gwin, has been assigned three of these new Malibu Media lawsuits, 1:14-cv-01389,  1:14-cv-01390, and 1:14-cv-01426. It will be interesting to see how judge Gwin and the other Northern District of Ohio judges evaluate Malibu Media’s claims of accurately naming its defendants.

For more information about Malibu Media LLC’s copyright infringement lawsuits visit Antonelli Law’s webpage at  http://www.antonelli-law.com/Malibu_Media.php.

The cases filed in the Northern District of Ohio federal court are:

• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 1:14-cv-01384
• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 1:14-cv-01387
• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 3:14-cv-01388
• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 1:14-cv-01389
• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 1:14-cv-01390
• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 3:14-cv-01421
• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 1:14-cv-01422
• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 1:14-cv-01423
• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 1:14-cv-01424
• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 1:14-cv-01425
• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 1:14-cv-01426
• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 1:14-cv-01427
• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 3:14-cv-01428
• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 3:14-cv-01429
• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 3:14-cv-01430
• Malibu Media LLC v. Doe 3:14-cv-01431

Malibu Media LLC is represented in the northern District of Ohio by Yousef Faroniya

sua sponte