Attorney Evan Brown

September 30, 2010 Computer Crime, Privacy

Divorce attorney did not conspire to violate the Electronic Communications Privacy Act

Court declines to recognize secondary liability for civil ECPA violation, holding that defendant’s divorce lawyer could not be a conspirator in a civil action alleging email interception.

Garback v. Lossing, 2010 WL 3733971 (E.D.Mich. September 20, 2010)

Plaintiff sued his ex-wife’s attorney for violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. He claimed that his ex-wife, her attorney and some other defendants (including a computer forensics firm) acted together to violate the ECPA by “hacking” into plaintiff’s email account. The ex-wife allegedly used information gathered in this process to negotiate a more favorable divorce settlement.

The defendant attorney moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. The court granted the motion.

The court found that in plaintiff’s “inartful” pleading, he had failed to allege that the defendant attorney had actually intercepted or knowingly used information obtained in violation of the ECPA. Plaintiff argued that this failure was not fatal, however, in that he had alleged that the defendant attorney conspired to intercept emails.

Rejecting this argument, the court observed that “normally federal courts refrain from creating secondary liability that is not specified by statute.” Finding no textual support in the ECPA for such secondary liability, the court declined to read ECPA’s scope so expansively. The court found the statute as being clear on who may be liable: those who intercept communications and those who get ahold of those communications knowing they were illegally obtained. So the ECPA claim failed and plaintiff was given leave to replead.

September 29, 2010 Copyright

Downloading a song is not a performance under the Copyright Act

“Performance” under Copyright Act requires “contemporaneous perceptibility”.

U.S. v. ASCAP, — F.3d —, No. 09-539 (2d Cir. September 28, 2010).

Yahoo and RealNetworks commenced a proceeding to determine the rate of a “blanket license” they would pay to ASCAP to perform musical works over the internet (e.g., through streaming services). (As an aside, such actions are brought in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York pursuant to an antitrust consent order entered way back in the 1940’s.)

ASCAP wanted as big a piece of the pie as possible and argued that it should be paid royalties for songs that are downloaded. Remember, ASCAP only collects fees for the public performance (not the distribution or copying) of musical works. So it asked the court to find that each time a user downloads a file, that should be treated as a performance, and thus ASCAP should be entitled to payment.

The district court disagreed that a download is a performance as defined by the Copyright Act. ASCAP sought review with the Second Circuit. On appeal the court affirmed, agreeing that a download is not a performance.

The analysis is straightforward: The Copyright Act grants copyright owners the right, among other things, to perform the copyrighted work publicly. Under the Copyright Act, to “‘perform’ a work means to recite, render, play, dance, or act it, either directly or by means of any device or process.” Since a download plainly is neither a “dance” nor an “act,” the court had to determine whether a download of a musical work fell within the meaning of the terms “recite,” “render,” or “play.”

The court looked to dictionary definitions of the terms “recite,” “render” and “play” to observe that all three actions entail contemporaneous perceptibility. It found that music is neither recited, rendered, nor played when a recording (electronic or otherwise) is simply delivered to a potential listener.

In more detail, the court said that:

[music downloads] are simply transfers of electronic files containing digital copies from an on-line server to a local hard drive. The downloaded songs are not performed in any perceptible manner during the transfers; the user must take some further action to play the songs after they are downloaded. Because the electronic download itself involves no recitation, rendering, or playing of the musical work encoded in the digital transmission, we hold that such a download is not a performance of that work, as defined by [the Copyright Act].

So ASCAP’s piece of the pie was not as big as it wanted.

September 28, 2010 Computer Crime

Lack of unauthorized access kills Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim

Oce North America, Inc. v. MCS Services, Inc., No. 10-984, 2010 WL 3703277 (D.Md. September 16, 2010)

Plaintiff makes sophisticated commercial grade printers. It also produces complex software that is used to diagnose problems with the printers and to set the functionality of the machines.

A field engineer who used to work for plaintiff allegedly copied some of the software onto his laptop when he worked for plaintiff. Later he went to work for one of the defendant companies, a competitor to plaintiff that also services plaintiff’s machines. Other employees of the defendant allegedly used copies of the software to do their work for defendant.

Plaintiff sued for, among other things, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which prohibits unauthorized access to protected computers. Defendants moved to dismiss. The court granted the motion.

The court held that plaintiff failed to allege that the field engineer’s access to the computer containing the software was unauthorized, because he accessed it and copied it to his laptop while he still worked for plaintiff. And that access was authorized.

As for the other defendants, the court held that the defendant company’s access to the software on the various laptops was not unauthorized. The critical point in this portion of the CFAA analysis was on whether access to the actual computer (not access to the software) was unauthorized. The defendant employees allowed access to the laptops onto which the diagnostic software was allegedly installed. So the CFAA claim failed on this basis.

September 27, 2010 Computer Crime, Privacy

Doctor’s wiretapping case under ECPA heads to trial

McCann v. Iroquois Memorial Hospital, No. 08-3420 (7th Cir. September 13, 2010)

Mystery of how doctor’s dictation machine got turned on to record conversation between doctor and hospital employee is a question for the jury and should not have been decided on summary judgment.

Two hospital employees — Dr. Lindberg and the director of physician services, Ms. McCann — had a conversation behind the doctor’s closed office door that the two of them thought was private. In their conversation, the two of them criticized hospital administration. But they did not know that the doctor’s dictation machine was recording what they said.

: Image via Wikipedia

How that machine got turned on is a mystery. Dr. Lindberg had been dictating radiology reports a few minutes before Ms. McCann arrived, so he may have accidentally left the machine running. But the recording of the conversation started in mid-sentence, which discredits that theory.

A member of the hospital’s transcription staff, Ms. Freed, is alleged to have come into the room during this conversation to pick up some papers, and Dr. Lindberg and Ms. McCann believe she surreptitiously turned on the machine. That would seem a plausible explanation, given that Ms. Freed supposedly had an axe to grind with Dr. Lindberg.

The recorded conversation made its way to the transcription staff, and after it was typed out, Ms. Freed forwarded it to the hospital’s CEO. Dr. Lindberg and Ms. McCann filed suit against Ms. Freed and others under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. They claimed that by secretly turning on the dictation machine and forwarding the transcript, Ms. Freed violated the statute.

The district court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Plaintiffs sought review with the Seventh Circuit. On appeal, the court reversed in part, finding there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Ms. Freed was in the room and secretly turned on the dictation machine.

The court of appeals held that whether Ms. Freed was in the office on the date the recording was made was merely the subject of a “swearing contest,” and that summary judgment is not appropriate to resolve such a contest. The lower court had based its grant of summary judgment largely on the contents of the recording. At the end of the conversation, one can hear the office door close as Ms. McCann leaves. But one cannot hear the door shut with Ms. Freed would have left, during the conversation and after she allegedly turned on the dictation machine.

Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, the court found that the absence of such a sound did not prove that Ms. Freed was not there: “[N]othing in the record tells us whether the door could have been closed silently; . . . [Ms.] Freed who was conscious that she was intruding (and, perhaps, that she was being taped) may have closed the door softly to be inconspicuous.”

So the court found that whether Ms. Freed was responsible for making the recording — and by extension whether Ms. Freed intentionally intercepted the conversation between Dr. Lindberg and Ms. McCann in violation of the ECPA — was an issue for the jury, and not one for summary judgment.

September 25, 2010 Privacy

Court: privacy on social networking sites is wishful thinking

Defendant is permitted access to plaintiff’s social networking accounts as part of discovery in personal injury case.

Romano v. Steelcase Inc., — N.Y.S.2d —, 2010 WL 3703242 (N.Y.Sup. September 21, 2010)

Plaintiff sued defendant for personal injury that allegedly caused her to lose her enjoyment of life. During discovery, plaintiff refused to voluntarily turn over the contents of her Myspace and Facebook accounts. So defendant filed a motion to compel plaintiff to consent to having Facebook and MySpace turn over all current and deleted content from the accounts. (That consent was necessary because without it, the sites would violate the Stored Communications Act.) The court granted the motion to compel.

The court found that the information contained in the profiles was “material and necessary” to the case. In drawing its conclusion, the court dispensed with any notion that a user’s privacy settings should affect the analysis. Denying defendant access to the information, the court found, would not only go against New York’s policy favoring liberal discovery, but “would condone Plaintiff’s attempt to hide relevant information behind self-regulated privacy settings.” Plaintiff had put her physical condition at issue, so it was fair for defendant to get evidence that may contradict the assertions of injury.

The court rejected plaintiff’s argument that disclosure of the information would violate her right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment. Fatal to any assertion of privacy was the fact that plaintiff had voluntarily made her information available on the sites. The court looked to earlier New York cases dealing with email to find that plaintiff had no expectation of privacy in the social networking data.

And the court made a sweeping declaration about the state of online privacy that is worth noting. Quoting from a law review article, the court observed that in the social media environment, “privacy is no longer grounded in reasonable expectations, but rather in some theoretical protocol better known as wishful thinking.”

September 23, 2010 Computer Crime, Privacy

Lack of knowledge of interception causes ECPA claims against website owners to fail

Zinna v. Cook, No. 06-1733, 2010 WL 3604386 (D. Colo. September 7, 2010)

Plaintiff sued for violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) claiming that defendants intercepted his email messages and posted them to a website called ColoradoWackoExposed.com. Defendants moved for summary judgment. The court granted the motion.

It found that although similarities between messages and website content suggested that emails had been intercepted, there was no evidence showing the interception was “contemporaneous” with the messages’ transmission. (Several federal circuits require such contemporaneity. But see the Seventh Circuit’s recent opinion in U.S. v. Szymuszkiewicz for a different take.)

The court also held there was insufficient evidence to show that defendants knew the information posted on the website came about via any unlawful interception. The plaintiff’s assertions that defendants had worked with a non-party wiretapper failed to convince the court of this knowledge.

September 21, 2010 Cybersquatting, Litigation

Domain name owner gets swift relief against impostor website

Starcom Mediavest Group v. Mediavestw.com, No. 10-4025, 2010 WL 3564845 (September 13, 2010)

In rem actions over domain names are powerful tools. A trademark owner can undertake these actions when it identifies an infringing domain name but cannot locate the owner of that domain name. In a sense, the domain name itself is the defendant.

The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (which is a part of the federal trademark statute dealing with the unauthorized registration of domain names) says that a court can enter ex parte orders requiring a domain name to be turned over when: (1) the plaintiff owns a registered trademark, (2) the domain name registry is located in the judicial district in which the action is being brought, (3) the domain name violates the plaintiff’s trademark rights, and (4) the plaintiff cannot locate the owner of the domain name even though it has diligently tried.

An “impostor” registered mediavestw.com, and “tricked” at least one of plaintiff’s business partners into signing up for advertising services. Plaintiff owns a trademark for MEDIAVEST and operates a website at mediavestww.com. Plaintiff filed an in rem action and sought a temporary restraining order (TRO).

The court granted the motion for TRO. It found that plaintiff had met its burden for a temporary restraining order in that it had shown that it was likely to succeed on the merits and that it would suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief. As for the showing of harm to its trademark rights, the court noted the efforts on the part of the domain name registrant to fraudulently enter into business arrangements with plaintiffs’ business partners.

The court found that the TRO would serve the public interest because such interest favors elimination of consumer confusion. (Consider whether there really was any consumer harm that took place here if the alleged fraud was on a business-to-business level. Compare the findings in this case with the finding of no consumer nexus in the recent Reit v. Yelp case.)

The court found that plaintiff had made such a strong showing of the likelihood of success that it did not require plaintiff to post a bond. It ordered the domain name transferred into the court’s control immediately. Behold the power of in rem actions.

September 20, 2010 Employment, Evidence

Plaintiff failed to show that Facebook pics supported hostile workplace claim

Jabbar v. Travel Services, Inc., 2010 WL 3563112, (D.Puerto Rico September 10, 2010)

Plaintiff sued her former employer for racial discrimination. The court granted summary judgment in favor of the employer, finding there was not enough evidence to go to trial on plaintiff’s claim. Plaintiff asked the court to reconsider the judgment against her. The court held its ground.

One of the assertions that plaintiff made was that someone from work had posted a discriminatory comment on a Facebook photo taken at a company outing.

The court found there was no evidence apart from plaintiff’s own deposition testimony that the company’s official policy was to upload photos to Facebook. And there was no evidence as to who owned the Facebook account in question.

So the court found no basis to overturn its earlier determination that plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case of employment discrimination.

Ohio record pirating statute preempted by Copyright Act

State v. Boyd, 2010 WL 3565414 (Ohio App. 1 Dist. September 15, 2010)

Defendant was convicted under Ohio state criminal law for selling pirated DVD movies on a street corner. This apparently was the first ever prosecution under a law — a “record pirating statute” — enacted in 1976 (which was two years before the Copyright Act took effect). Defendant sought review of his conviction with the state appellate court. On appeal, the court reversed the conviction.

The court held that the state record pirating statute (R.C. 1333.52) was preempted by Section 301 of the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. 301).

It was not clear which subsection of the record pirating statute defendant had been accused of violating. The statute provides:

No person shall purposely do either of the following: (1) Transcribe, without the consent of the owner, any sounds recorded on a phonograph record, disc, wire, tape, film, or other article on which sounds are recorded, with intent to sell or use for profit through public performance any product derived from the transcription. . . .

and

No person shall purposely manufacture, sell, or distribute for profit any phonograph record, tape, or album of phonographic records or tapes unless the record and the outside cover, box, or jacket of the record, tape, or album clearly and conspicuously discloses the name and street address of the manufacturer of the record, tape, or album, and the name of the performer or group whose performance is recorded. . . .

The Copyright Act expressly preempts certain state-law actions. Section 301 states that all legal or equitable rights that are equivalent to any of the exclusive rights conferred by the Copyright Act and that come within the subject matter of copyright . . . are governed exclusively by the Copyright Act.

In this case, there was no dispute that the movies were within the subject matter of federal copyright law. The more detailed analysis came in examining the question of whether the work was governed exclusively by the Copyright Act. That inquiry looks to see whether there is a qualitatively different “extra element” in the state law claim beyond what is required to show copyright infringement.

The court looked to two similar Ohio cases in which defendants had engaged in similar conduct. In State v. Perry, the Ohio supreme court found that the statute supporting the prosecution for “unauthorized use of property” by uploading and downloading computer software to an internet bulletin board service was preempted. In State v. Moning, the court held that a computer crime statute that prohibited the unauthorized access to data in a database was not preempted. The unauthorized access provided the extra element in that case.