Court Sides With Quadranet
After allowing the filmmakers to amend their complaints to address potential deficiencies in their pleading, the Florida federal court ruled on the motion to dismiss this week. This resulted in a clear victory for the hosting provider.
District Court Judge Beth Bloom concluded that there isn’t sufficient ground to argue that Quadranet is liable for contributory copyright infringement. This would require the rightsholders to show that culpable intent was involved, which isn’t the case here.
The filmmakers cited jurisprudence that shows that third-party services can be required to take ‘appropriate’ action if they are made aware of infringing activity. However, in this case, the court concludes that Quadranet was not aware of any specific infringements since the pirated traffic was encrypted.
“The [complaint] instead alleges that Quadranet provides servers to VPN companies. Quadranet notes that VPN companies encrypt their clients’ (‘end users’) online activity, which means Quadranet was never aware of the end users’ online activity on Quadranet’s servers.
“As such, even if Plaintiffs sent notices of copyright infringement to Quadranet, which neither Party disputes, Quadranet was unaware of any specific infringing activity,” Judge Bloom adds, while dismissing the contributory infringement claim.
torrentfreak.com
After allowing the filmmakers to amend their complaints to address potential deficiencies in their pleading, the Florida federal court ruled on the motion to dismiss this week. This resulted in a clear victory for the hosting provider.
District Court Judge Beth Bloom concluded that there isn’t sufficient ground to argue that Quadranet is liable for contributory copyright infringement. This would require the rightsholders to show that culpable intent was involved, which isn’t the case here.
The filmmakers cited jurisprudence that shows that third-party services can be required to take ‘appropriate’ action if they are made aware of infringing activity. However, in this case, the court concludes that Quadranet was not aware of any specific infringements since the pirated traffic was encrypted.
“The [complaint] instead alleges that Quadranet provides servers to VPN companies. Quadranet notes that VPN companies encrypt their clients’ (‘end users’) online activity, which means Quadranet was never aware of the end users’ online activity on Quadranet’s servers.
“As such, even if Plaintiffs sent notices of copyright infringement to Quadranet, which neither Party disputes, Quadranet was unaware of any specific infringing activity,” Judge Bloom adds, while dismissing the contributory infringement claim.
Hosting Company Defeats Filmmakers' "VPN Piracy" Lawsuit in Court * TorrentFreak
Hosting company Quadranet has scored a crucial victory in a "VPN piracy" lawsuit filed by several film companies earlier this year.