EFF: 20040316 Interscope Response

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UNITED S"{ATES DISTRICT COURTMIDDLB DISTRICT OF FLORIDAORLANDO DIVISION

Case No.: 6:04-cv-197 -Orl-22DAB

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ll"frERSCOPE RECORDS, a Californiageneral ~artnership; CAROLINERECORDS, JNC.. a New Yorkcorporation; CAPITOL RI!}CORDS,n-iC., a Delaware co~on;MAVERICK RECORDINGCOMPANY, a CBlifomia joint venture;WARNER BROS. RECORDS mc., aDelaware corporation; LONDON-SIRERECORDS INC., a Delawarecorporation; UMO

5~INGS'NC.. a Delaware corpo on; SONYMUSIC EmERT INC.. aDelaware corporation; M TOWNRECORD COMPANY. U.P.. a Californialimited partnership; ARL;T A

RECORDS, INC., a De~corporaton; FONOVIS

iC" aalifornia corporation; B G MUSIC, aNew York general partn 'p;ATLANTIC RECORD

CORPORA l0N, a DelaMre

~~ra1ion;

ELBKTRA !ENfER TA n.fMENT GROUP INC., aDelaware corpontion; PRIORITYRECORDS LLC, a Calif~ limitedliabili., company, and VIRGINRECORDS AMERICA, INC., aCalifornia corporation,

Plaintiffs,

v.

DOES 1 - 25,

-- - -- De~dan~.-

CAUSEDATE MARCB5 PORT HEREOF

Plaintiffs hereby ild their Responseo this Court's March 5, 2004 Order o show cause"why this caseshouldnot be dismissed or improper oinder of Plaintiffs and Defcndantsand or an inadequate ho\Jiing hat this Court haspersonalurisdiction over the Defendants nd hat

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venue s proper," For the reasons et orth below, he Court should eserveudgment on thoseissuesuntil such ime as all Defendants avebeen dentified and are before he Court. In anyevent.personal urisdiction andvenueareproper n this Court, and his caseshould not be dismissed or improper oinder.BACKGROUNDPlaintiffs in this caseare major reoordingcompanieswho own copyrights n sound

recordings. The as..yetUJUIamedDefendants in this case are individuals who have disseminated

(and ikely are continuing o disseminate) lainQm' copyrightedworks W1lawfullyover a peer-to-peer .~P2P") etwork. A P2Pnetwork s an online mediadistribution system hat allows usersto transform heir computers nto ~ interactive nternetsite. disseminating iles for other users ocopy. P2P userswho disseminate upload)copyrightedmaterial ~ who copy (download) suc.h

material violate the copyright laws. SeeA&M Records, Inc. \I. Napster, Inc.. 239 F .3d 1004.

1013-14 9th Cir. 2001); In re Aimstef CopyrightLitigation, 334 F.3d 643 (7th Cu. 2003), cert.denied. 124 S. Ct. 1069 2004).Each of the Defendants n this case s an activeparticipant n the FastTrack network, thelargestcurrent P2P network. SecondDeclarationof JonathanWhitehead' 4 ("Second WhiteheadDecl.") (attachedas Exhibit A). As such.eachDefendant articipates n an online swapmeet. offering copyrightedsound ecordjngs or download o eachother and downloading copyrightedsound ecordings rom eachother. EachDefendant as chosen o makeavailable from his or her computerhundredsor thousands f copyriihted sound ecordingsunlawfully (in exchange or the chance o copy minions offUes illegally copiedand disseminated y others).SeeDeclaration of JonathanWhiteheadn SupportofPlaintitfs' Motion for Leave o Take ImmediateDiscovery, 17 ("WhiteheadDecl."'); SecondWhiteheadDec1.11 . 2

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As explained n the Memorandum f Law in Supportof Plaintiffs' Ex Parte Motion forLeave o Take ImmediateDiscovery.Plaintiffs discovered achof the Defendantsn this case openly disseminatingcopyrightedworks on the FastTrack network. Plaintiffs could identify the Internet Protocol ("IF") addressrom which eachDefendantwas unlawfully disseminating Plaintiffs. copyrightedworks, but could not ascertainhe name,address, r any other contact

infoIn1atton for each of the Defendants.J Whitehead Decl. " 16, 21. Using the IP address,

Plaintiffs determined hat Briiht HouseNetworks "Bright House").an Internet SenriceProvider ("ISPj with the majority of its subscribersocated n CentralFlorida, servesas eachDefendant's ISP. Only Bright House.which hascomplete ontrol over which JPaddresses re assigned o which subscribers nd which maintains ogs hat match F addresses /itb subscribers. ossesses

that information.

SecondWhitehead ecl. 7.

Plaintiffs havesubstantialevidence o support heir claims. With m5pect o eachDefendant,Plaintiffs have specified he IP address, ate,and ime of die infringement; hatinfonnation uniquely specifiesa Bright Housesubscn'ber s he soureeof1be nfringement. As explained n more detail in the first WhiteheadDeclaration.Plaintiffs downloadeda list of the files disseminated y eachDefendantand downloaded everal iles being disseminated y eachDefendant o confirm that Plaintiffs owned he copyrightsof the sound ecordings. SeeWhite~~ Dccl.

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16. 17. For eachDefendant.Plaintiffs haveprovided a list of several copyrightedsound ecordings hat the Defendantdisseminated ithout authorization. SeeExhibit A to the Complaint. That ist, however, s only a small subsetof the copyrightedsowld

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An IP address s a 10-digit nwnber, suchas 12.34.255.255. F addresses re allotted n b1ocksto ISPs. SecondWhiteheadDecl. 1 7. On1yan ISP can detenuinewhich subscriberwas using a particular IP address llotted o the ISP at a given dateand ime. ISPshave completecontrol over the assignment f IP addresseso subscribe~. There s no requirement hat ISPs assign Paddresaes ccording o wherea sub8Cribcresides. d

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