Ganjavi v. Smith [1]

In 2006, Reza Ganjavi, a musician and record producer in the field of classical guitar, filed suit in federal court in California against several named and anonymous Internet posters.  Ganjavi alleged that the individual defendants posted negative comments about him on various websites and Usenet's classical guitar newsgroup and created websites mocking his website.  Ganjavi also alleged that the defendants fraudulently published text purporting to be his work and used his identity to make offensive and threatening statements, including threatening to kill a person, issuing racial slurs, and expressing sympathy for terrorists. 

In Ganjavi's suit in California, the court order [2] dismissing the case without prejudice indicated that all defendants either were dropped from the case by the plaintiff or filed successful motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Ganjavi then sued [3] Jeremy and Cindy Smith, Todd Tipton, William Jennings, and Deloitte & Touche in federal court in Illinois over essentially the same facts. Ganjavi named Deloitte & Touche because the company employed Jeremy Smith and he was believed to have made some of the disputed comments from Deloitte's computers (Ganjavi later dropped the company from the suit).

Ganjavi's third amended complaint [4] contained claims for violation of attribution and integrity rights under the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 106A), "false presentation" in violation of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), false light, appropriation of name and likeness, libel, negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, unfair competition, and other state law claims.

The defendants moved to dismiss the lawsuit and for summary judgment on various grounds. In July 2007, the district court granted [5] Jeremy Smith's motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. With respect to the two federal claims, the court held (1) that Ganjavi's federal copyright claim under § 106A did not survive as a basis for federal jurisdiction because that section only applies to works of visual art under § 101 of the Copyright Act, which do not include electronic publications, and (2) that the ACPA claim did not survive because the complaint did not assert that the defendants had attempted to or intended to profit from the alleged wrongful conduct. The court further found that since Ganjavi had not established the jurisdictional threshold amount for the remaining state law claims, it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to hear the case.

According to Ganjavi's website [6], he had planned to refile in state court but reached a settlement agreement with the defendants before doing so.