User:Fmyd/Mavrix Photo, Inc. v. Brand Technologies, Inc.

Mavrix Photo, Inc. v. Brand Technologies, Inc.
Court	United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Full case name	Mavrix Photo, Inc. v. Brand Technologies, Inc.; Brad Mandell, and Brandtech, gossipgirls.com., celebrity-gossip.net
Decided	Aug. 8,2011
Citation	647 F.3d 1218 (9th Cir. 2011)
Court membership
Judges sitting	Kim McLane Wardlaw, and William A. Fletcher, and Barbara M. Lynn

Mavrix Photo, Inc. v. Brand Technologies, Inc., 647 F.3d 1218 (9th Cir. 2011), is a case in American intellectual property law. The case involved issues regarding personal jurisdiction in the context of internet contacts.

This case had three significant holdings. First, Brand lacked sufficient contacts with California for exercise of general jurisdiction, second, Brand's alleged copyright infringement on its website was ecpressly aimed at California, as required, under purposeful direction analysis, to support specific jurisdiction, and finally Brand's alleged copyright infringement caused harm that Brand knew was likelty to be suffered in california, as required to support specific jurisdiction.

Facts

In April 2008, photographers for Mavrix Photo, Inc., took a series of “candid photographs” of the pop star Fergie, who was vacationing in the Bahamas, and posted them on the internet. Mavrix subsequently “copyrighted the [photographs] with the intent to exclusivelylicense them to a celebrity news publication.” Shortly hereafter, Mavrix, a Florida corporation, discovered that Brand Technologies, Inc., an Ohio corporation, had posted these photographs on its website, www.celebrity-gossip.net, allegedly without the permission of Mavrix. This website, which “has several interactive features,” was ranked by “an Internet tracking service . . . as number 3,622 out of approximately 180 million websites worldwide based on traffic,” making it a remarkably popular website. Mavrix brought suit against Brand in the Central District of California for misappropriation of its copyrighted photographs under the Copyright Act. Brand moved to dismiss the action for, among other grounds, lack of personal jurisdiction.