Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, LLC v. Shen
- Vernon Broderick
- 1:14-cv-01112
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 11
In Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator v. Shen, Judge Broderick adopted the damages recommendation and awarded Plaintiff $14,927,000.
AACSLA received a $14,927,000 damages award against the defaulting defendants, including Feng Tao and the other members of the DVDFab Group. The order directed entry of judgment and closure of the case.
What happened
Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, LLC sued the DVDFab Group under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for trafficking in products designed to bypass encryption protecting Blu-ray content. The court had already entered a default judgment on liability and sent the damages issue to Magistrate Judge Stewart Aaron.
Feng Tao objected to the recommended damages calculation, challenging the expert’s methods, the conversion rate, the estimated sales, the website-traffic evidence, and the magistrate judge’s evaluation of the evidence. The court reviewed the objections and found no error in the Report and Recommendation.
Judge Vernon S. Broderick overruled Tao’s objections, adopted the Report and Recommendation in its entirety, awarded Plaintiff $14,927,000 in damages, directed entry of judgment, and closed the case.
The detailed version
- Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, LLC v. Shen · No. 1:14-cv-01112
- Vernon Broderick
- July 5, 2023
Background
Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, LLC (AACSLA) brought this action under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a federal law that prohibits trafficking in technology designed to bypass protections controlling access to copyrighted works. AACSLA alleged that the DVDFab Group trafficked in software that removed encryption and copy protections from Blu-ray discs.
The court had previously entered a default judgment against the defendants on liability, meaning the defendants’ failure to defend resulted in liability being established without a trial on that issue. The court referred the damages question to Magistrate Judge Stewart Aaron for an evidentiary hearing, called an inquest. AACSLA sought $47,049,500 in damages. Magistrate Judge Aaron recommended an award of $14,927,000.
Objections and Analysis
Feng Tao objected to the Report and Recommendation. He challenged the reliability of AACSLA expert Joshua Hopping’s damages model and expertise, the conversion rate used to estimate purchases from website visits, the method for allocating estimated sales among products, the treatment of sales after the preliminary injunction, AACSLA’s website-traffic evidence, and Magistrate Judge Aaron’s assessment of the inquest evidence.
Judge Broderick overruled the objections and adopted the Report and Recommendation in its entirety. The court concluded that the damages estimates were reasonable even though they could not be mathematically precise because Tao had not submitted actual sales records or competing expert evidence. The court also approved use of the conservative 2.2% conversion rate, found no error in the allocation of estimated sales, declined to consider new arguments raised for the first time in the objections, and found that Magistrate Judge Aaron properly relied on the evidence presented at the inquest.
Disposition
Judge Vernon S. Broderick adopted Magistrate Judge Aaron’s Report and Recommendation in its entirety and awarded AACSLA $14,927,000 in damages. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate open motions, enter judgment in accordance with the order, and close the case.
Read the full 11-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.