Puerto 80 is a solely-owned limited liability company based in Arteixo, Spain. The company operates a website entitled Roja Directa, which provides a chronological listing of sporting events with links to websites that are streaming live broadcasts of those events over the Internet. The website also operates a series of message boards and a small blog.

On January 31, 2011, an agent with the United States Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement division, filed an affidavit for a warrant to seize several domain names, including rojadirecta.org and rojadirecta.com. Using a recently-modified civil forfeiture law passed in 2008, the agent alleged that these domain names were property used for the commission of criminal copyright infringement, and thus subject to seizure. According to the United States, Roja Directa linked to websites streaming sporting events, the copyrights of which are owned by the NFL, NBA, NHL, and WWE. These organizations did not license the webcasts. This seizure was part of a larger IP enforcement campaign called Operation in Our Sites, which began in June of 2010 and continues today.

A federal magistrate judge issued a warrant for the seizure of the domain names. This order applied specifically to the URLs only, and not the servers which contain the Roja Directa website. The warrant ordered the domain name registries for the ".com" and ".org" top level domains, as well as Puerto 80's registrar for "rojadirecta.com" and "rojadirecta.org," to transfer ownership of the domain name to the United States, who then displayed a page informing the public that the domain name had been seized.

According to Puerto 80, the company attempted to negotiate with the United States for the return of the domain names, but reached no agreement. On June 13, 2011, Puerto 80 filed a petition for release of its seized property pursuant to 18 U.S.C.§ 983(f) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Puerto 80 argued that linking to other websites does not constitute criminal copyright infringement, there is no risk that evidence will be unavailable should the government decide to initiate a forfeiture proceeding, and the restriction of the expressive content of the website before an adjudication of whether the content was infringing was a prior restraint of speech. The United States filed a memorandum in opposition, arguing that the actions of Puerto 80 constituted criminal copyright infringement, to release the domain name would allow continuation of that infringement, and the domain name seizure was not a prior restraint because Roja Directa was able to move the websites to new domains housed outside of the United States.

On August 4, 2011 the district court denied Puerto 80's petition for release.The court did not find the hardship necessary for a § 983(f) dismissal, and suggested that the First Amendment arguments were best left to a motion to dismiss against the forfeiture complaint. Puerto 80 filed an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on August 18, 2011, and shortly thereafter filed a motion for expedited appeal, which the Second Circuit granted.

Puerto 80 filed its opening brief to the Second Circuit on September 16, 2011. The United States filed a response brief on November 15, 2011. The court also accepted an amicus curiae brief from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, filed on November 22, 2011.

Puerto 80's reply brief to the government's response is due on December 6, 2011, with argument before the Second Circuit slated for the week of December 19th.

TheFlyOnTheWall.com is, according to its website,  a subscription-based investment-news service that "filter[s] through market information" to assist investors. In mid-2006, a group of investment firms brought suit against FOTW over the latter's use of the firms' investment research and recommendations. FOTW republished (sometimes nearly verbatim) various recommendations and reports created by the investment banks, charging a subscription fee for access to the collated information.

The firms brought suit against FOTW, alleging both copyright infringement (for the reports copied nearly verbatim) and "hot news" misappropriation (for content that contained the substance of the firms' recommendations but did not copy the text). FOTW eventually dropped its challenge to the copyright claims, and the firms were awarded a total of $12,750 in statutory damages and an injunction against further infringement (plus pre-judgment interest and some attorneys' fees).

The remaining question, once the copyright claims were decided, involved New York's recognition of a claim for "hot news" misappropriation and whether or not such a claim is preempted by federal copyright law.  Notably, FOTW voluntarily waived its First Amendment defense to the "hot news" claim.  The trial court eventually ruled that there was no preemption, found (in a bench trial) for the firms, and permanently enjoined FOTW from reporting the firms' recommendations for a period between 30 minutes and 2 hours each morning.

On June 20, 2011, the Second Circuit reversed and vacated the permanent injunction. The Court ruled that the firms' "hot news" claims were in fact preempted by federal copyright law but only on the facts of the case, holding that the record below did not support a finding that there was an "extra element" of FOTW's conduct that would allow New York state law to punish that conduct without running afoul of preemption.  Specifically, the Second Circuit held that FOTW did not "free-ride" on the firms' work, because it was conducting a separate function -- collating and gathering the firms' recommendations -- at its own expense.  Critically, the Court found that the firms were not reporting the news when they announced their recommendations; rather, the Firms were creating the news and FOTW was doing the separate work of breaking that news. A concurrence argued that FOTW was not in direct competition with the firms. 

On June 28, 2010, Righthaven LLC, a Las Vegas company associated with Las Vegas Review-Journal owner Stephens Media LLC, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the website company Vote for the Worst ("VFTW") LLC and two of its managers, David Della Terza and Nathan Palmer.  Righthaven sued VFTW after a user posted a Las Vegas Review-Journal article on the site's forum.

On August 16, 2010, VFTW moved to dismiss.  VFTW argued that the court lacked personal jurisdiction because none of the defendants are residents of or have sufficient contacts with Nevada.  The court denied VFTW's motion on March 30, 2011.

VFTW filed an answer on April 13, 2011, asserting defenses of fair use, lack of personal and subject matter jurisdiction, and innocent infringement. 

Update:

4/17/2011 - VFTW filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, based on the recently-unsealed agreement that purported to assign Stephens Media's copyright in various content to Righthaven.  Hoehn argued that the agreement, which was unsealed by the court hearing Righthaven LLC v. Democratic Underground LLC, shows that Righthaven lacks the standing to sue because Righthaven was not the exclusive holder of any rights in the copyrighted material at issue in the lawsuit.  Under Silvers v. Sony Pictures Entm’t, Inc., 402 F.3d 881 (9th Cir. 2005), a plaintiff must be the exclusive holder in a copyright to sue.  Under the unsealed agreement, Stephens Media retained exclusive rights in the works, thereby preventing Righthaven from being able to sue on the copyright.

Righthaven LLC, a Las Vegas company associated with Las Vegas Review-Journal owner Stephens Media LLC, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against William Sumner and DailyKix.com.  Righthaven alleged that Sumner used a photo copied from the Denver Post without permission on the social media aggregator website DailyKix.com.

Sumner filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction in response.   Sumner, a Georgia resident, argued that the court lacks general jurisdiction over him because neither he nor his website, which resides on a server in Kansas, has continuous and systematic contacts with Colorado.  And Sumner argued that the court lacks specific jurisdiction over him because he never purposefully availed himself of operating in Colorado.  Sumner noted that the allegedly infringing photograph was auto-populated by the DailyKix's automatic aggregation algorithyms, and not by any intentional activity on his part.

Sumner also argued that DailyKix.com, as a website without any sort of associated business entity, should be dismissed as an improper defendant because it lacks the capacity to be sued.

Righthaven LLC, a Las Vegas company associated with Las Vegas Review-Journal owner Stephens Media LLC, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Wayne Hoehn.  Righthaven alleged that Hoehn copied an article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal without permission and posted it to the forums of the website Madjack Sports.

In his answer, Hoehn argued that his use of the article was protected as fair use, and that the court lacked jurisdiction over the case, as Hoehn is a Kentucky resident, the website in question is hosted in California, and his comments concerned matters in California and Illinois. 

Hoehn filed a motion for summary judgment on February 2, 2011, arguing that his copying of the article was for a transformative purpose and educational use.  As such, Hoehn wrote, his copying is protected as fair use and as Righthaven failed to show otherwise, he is entitled to summary judgment.  In its response, Righthaven argued that there are too many genuine issues of fact regarding Hoehn's copying to warrant summary judgment, and that Hoehn's copying was not fair use.

Update:

3/24/2011 - Hoehn filed a response to Righthaven's opposition to his motion for summary judgment, arguing that the court has all the facts it needs to rule on summary judgment.  Hoehn's substantive argument relies heavily on U.S. District Judge James Mahan's March 18 decision to dismiss another Righthaven lawsuit, Righthaven LLC v. Center for Intercultural Organizing, on fair use grounds.  In that case, the defendant copied an entire article for educational purposes.  Hoehn argued that the facts of his case are analogous, and therefore deserving of the same fair use protection.

4/17/2011 - Hoehn filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, based on the recently-unsealed agreement that purported to assign Stephens Media's copyright in various content to Righthaven.  Hoehn argued that the agreement, which was unsealed by the court hearing Righthaven LLC v. Democratic Underground LLC, shows that Righthaven lacks the standing to sue because Righthaven was not the exclusive holder of any rights in the copyrighted material at issue in the lawsuit.  Under Silvers v. Sony Pictures Entm’t, Inc., 402 F.3d 881 (9th Cir. 2005), a plaintiff must be the exclusive holder in a copyright to sue.  Under the unsealed agreement, Stephens Media retained exclusive rights in the works, thereby preventing Righthaven from being able to sue on the copyright.

6/20/2011 - Court granted Defendant's Motions to Dismiss for Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction and for Summary Judgement.