Following a recent decision from the Sixth Circuit, anonymous bloggers and other Internet users who post third-party copyrighted material without authorization have cause for concern. They may be unable to preserve their anonymity.
In Signature Management Team, LLC v. John Doe, the majority of a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit established a new “presumption in favor of unmasking anonymous defendants when judgment has been entered for a plaintiff” in a copyright infringement case. This unmasking presumption is intended to protect the openness of judicial proceedings. Whether to unmask the defendant in such circumstances requires an examination of factors such as the plaintiff’s and public’s interest in knowing the defendant’s identity.
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Following a recent U.S. district court’s ruling, foreign companies operating cloud-based services may find themselves subject to federal long-arm jurisdiction under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2), even if they have no physical presence in the United States. In reaching its decision, the court noted that the question was ripe for consideration by the court of appeals; thus, it remains to be seen whether the decision will stand if appealed.