Adult Film Company Seeks Rehearing of DMCA Suit Loss at 9th Circuit

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' precedent makes "an absolute mess of the repeat-infringer requirement" of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that will haunt it and lower courts, adult film distributor Ventura Content said in a docket 13-56332 petition for rehearing en banc (in Pacer) filed Friday. A majority of the 9th Circuit in March upheld a lower court's summary judgment in favor of defendant Motherless, which operates a website for user sharing of pornography and which Ventura sued for copyright infringement, with Judge Johnnie Rawlinson dissenting. Ventura said the majority members of the panel improperly followed Rule 56, covering summary judgment, and Motherless clearly didn't have or follow a legally sufficient repeat-infringer policy because company assertions about having such a policy were repeatedly proven false. Motherless outside counsel didn't comment Monday. Copyright lawyer Sarah Bro of McDermott Will blogged Friday that, per the decision, Motherless didn't forfeit safe harbor protection when it screened and removed illegal content like child pornography or organized content into categories, and the court found Motherless' removal of Ventura content after being sued was expeditious enough to comply with safe harbor requirements.