No, You Can't Claim 'Negligence' In a Copyright Case

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In one of the myriad BitTorrent downloading cases against individuals, one plaintiff's law firm thought they'd be clever and insert a 'negligence' claim, saying that the defendant was negligent in failing to supervise his roommate's use of his WiFi access. Defendant moved to dismiss the negligence claim on the ground that it was preempted by the Copyright Act, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed an amicus curiae brief (PDF) agreeing with him. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan agreed, and dismissed the complaint, holding that the 'negligence' claim was preempted by the Copyright Act."

Comments

Negligence

[jbuk]

Whilst I get that suing people for negligence, where, say, it caused some nuclear warheads to explode in their silos makes sense. However, negligence on the part of someone who is not doing the media's job for them (policing copyright)? Seriously?

Re:Negligence

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with a negligence claim here, it would just be a hard sell. Negligence arises when someone has a duty, they breach the duty, and the breach is the cause of a forseeable harm to the plaintiff.

It doesn't have to involve nukes, and usually it doesn't.

So there would be two big hurdles for a plaintiff here: (1) a duty to keep one's internet connection secure and (2) the idea that there has actually been harm.

The judge bought an argument that the copyright law created a way for people to recover for the harm involved here, so the copyright statute overrules the ability to file a common-law negligence action. (Statutes trump common law). It's not a bad argument, although it's also not a surefire-win. (And as an on-point district court decision, the ruling is persuasive, but not binding on other courts.)

Disclaimer: IANAL, this isn't legal advice, laws vary by state, and you and I are both partially wrong.

Re:What about ISPs

[Baloroth]

Ah, not BS, the judge dismissed the claim, which implies that in fact you can not sue someone for negligence simply for them using your hardware. Next time, might want to read the summary slightly more carefully.