Cameo Clips

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that it lacked personal jurisdiction over an Oregon-based, not-for-profit operator of a Web site that made unauthorized downloads of books of a New York-based publisher available to the public. Penguin Group (USA) Inc. v. American Buddha, 09 Civ. 528(GEL). Penguin Group filed suit charging copyright infringement by the defendant's www.naderlibrary.com, of books by authors Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis and others. The district court noted in dismissing the suit: “Plaintiff does not allege that any infringement occurred in New York. Rather, its theory of jurisdiction is that because it is based in New York, infringement occurring anywhere in the world necessarily injures plaintiff in New York. ' That position is unsustainable.” The court reasoned that “while the electronic nature of the alleged infringement may make it possible for others acting in New York to infringe plaintiff's copyrights here, plaintiff has not alleged such a New York infringement, and bases its claim of injury solely on the economic effect of an injury inflicted by defendant elsewhere.”