Conrad v. Latido Mitu Holdings LLC

Background

Vicki Conrad and John Dlugolecki alleged that they created and owned copyrights in photographs of Meghan Markle taken in the late 1990s. Contact Press Images, Inc. was alleged to be the exclusive agency for those photographs. The plaintiffs claimed that Latido Mitu Holdings, LLC and GoDigital Media Group acquired the website wearemitu.com from Mitu, Inc. and displayed the photographs in December 2020 without authorization.

The plaintiffs sued under the Copyright Act, alleging willful infringement. Latido Mitu Holdings and GoDigital Media Group moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(2) and for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). In the alternative, they asked the court to transfer the case to the Central District of California.

Personal Jurisdiction

The court held that the plaintiffs had not shown a sufficient basis for exercising specific personal jurisdiction over Latido Mitu Holdings and GoDigital Media Group in New York. The court accepted, for purposes of the motion, that the defendants’ website was interactive and allowed commercial transactions with New York consumers. Together with allegations that the defendants were registered to do business in New York and had operations there, those facts satisfied the first part of New York’s business-transaction test.

But the plaintiffs did not show that the copyright claim arose from those New York transactions. The alleged infringement involved the unauthorized display of the Markle photographs, while the cited New York activities concerned merchandise sales, business operations, and videos or social-media content unrelated to those photographs. The court therefore found no substantial relationship between the New York business activities and the copyright claim.

The court also rejected jurisdiction under another part of New York’s long-arm statute concerning an out-of-state tort that causes injury in New York. In online copyright cases, the court explained, the injury is generally located where the copyright holder is located. The court found that Conrad and Dlugolecki were located in California, not New York. It further concluded that the defendants lacked sufficient New York contacts under constitutional due-process principles and had not expressly aimed the alleged conduct at New York.

The court denied the plaintiffs’ request for limited jurisdictional discovery, finding that the identified deficiencies in personal jurisdiction would not be cured by the requested discovery.

Other Requested Dismissal

Because the court concluded that it could not exercise personal jurisdiction over Latido Mitu Holdings and GoDigital Media Group, it did not decide whether the plaintiffs had adequately stated a copyright claim under Rule 12(b)(6).

Transfer of Venue

The court concluded that the action could have been brought in the Central District of California because that court had jurisdiction over the federal copyright claims and the moving defendants were organized and had their principal places of business there. The court found that nearly all relevant factors favored transfer, including the locations of the parties, witnesses, documents, sources of proof, and operative events. It also noted that the Central District of California was familiar with copyright law and could efficiently handle the case.

Disposition

Judge P. Castel granted Latido Mitu Holdings and GoDigital Media Group’s motion to transfer venue to the Central District of California. He denied their motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction without prejudice and denied their motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim without prejudice. The court directed the Clerk to transfer the action and administratively close the docket in the Southern District of New York.