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1 LOEB & LOEB LLP KAREN R. THORLAND (State Bar No. 172092) 2 W. ALLAN EDMISTON (State Bar No. 228246) 10100 Santa Monica Boulevard, Suite 2200 3 Los Angeles, California 90067-4164 Telephone: 310.282.2000 Facsimile: 310.282.2200 4 E-Mail: [email protected] E-Mail: [email protected] 5 JENNER & BLOCK LLP 6 KATHERINE A. FALLOW DUANE C. POZZA (State Bar No. 225933) 7 601 Thirteenth Street, N.W. Suite 1200 South 8 Washington, D.C. 20005 Telephone: 202.639.6000 Facsimile: 202.639.6066 9 E-Mail: [email protected] E-Mail: [email protected] 10 Attorneys for Plaintiffs 11 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 12 CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 13 COLUMBIA PICTURES ) Case No. 14 ) INDUSTRIES, INC., DISNEY ) COMPLAINT FOR COPYRIGHT 15 ENTERPRISES, INC., PARAMOUNT ) INFRINGEMENT PICTURES CORPORATION, ) 16 ) TRISTAR PICTURES, INC., ) 17 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM ) CORPORATION, UNIVERSAL CITY ) 18 ) STUDIOS LLLP, UNIVERSAL CITY ) 19 STUDIOS PRODUCTIONS LLLP, and ) WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT ) 20 ) INC., Delaware corporations, ) 21 ) Plaintiffs, ) 22 ) vs. ) 23 ) JUSTIN BUNNELL, FORREST ) 24 ) PARKER, WES PARKER, individuals, ) 25 VALENCE MEDIA, LLC, a ) corporation, and DOES 1-10, ) 26 ) ) 27 Defendants. ) 28 Loeb & Loeb A Limited Liability Partnership Including Professional Corporations Error! Unknown document property name. 1 Plaintiffs Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. (“Columbia”), Disney 2 Enterprises, Inc. (“Disney”), Paramount Pictures Corporation (“Paramount”), 3 TriStar Pictures, Inc. (“TriStar”), Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (“Fox”), 4 Universal City Studios LLLP (“Universal”), Universal City Studios Productions 5 LLLP (“Universal Productions”), and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (“Warner 6 Bros.”) hereby allege as follows: 7 Jurisdiction And Venue 8 1. This is a civil action seeking damages and injunctive relief for 9 copyright infringement under the copyright laws of the United States, and therefore 10 the Court has jurisdiction under 17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq.; 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal 11 question jurisdiction); and 28 U.S.C. § 1338(a) (jurisdiction over copyright actions). 12 2. Personal jurisdiction over the Defendants is proper. On information 13 and belief, each of the Defendants resides, may be found, has a principal place of 14 business, and/or does business in California. Further, on information and belief, 15 each Defendant conducts business with other Defendants and/or unnamed entities in 16 order to operate their website as part of a business venture that is centered in 17 California. Additionally, Defendants have chosen to direct their infringing activities 18 towards California in particular. Defendants enable users, including California 19 residents, to access torrent files on their website, and the users’ computers interact 20 with the website to download infringing copies of Plaintiffs’ works. In fact, the 21 voluminous acts of direct infringement for which Defendants are liable require a 22 high level of interaction between users’ computers and Defendants’ website. On 23 information and belief, many of these acts of direct infringement for which 24 Defendants are liable occur in California, where California residents access 25 Defendants’ website in order to download infringing copies of Plaintiffs’ works. In 26 these and other ways, Defendants have had continuous contact with the State of 27 California and its residents. 28 Loeb & Loeb A Limited Liability Partnership Including Professional Corporations Error! Unknown document property name. 2 1 3. Venue in this District is proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b) and/or 28 2 U.S.C. § 1400(a). On information and belief, each Defendant may be found in this 3 District, and/or a substantial part of the acts of infringement complained of herein 4 occurs or has occurred in this District. 5 Nature Of The Case 6 4. This is a case of willful and rampant infringement of copyright over the 7 Internet. Defendants knowingly enable, encourage, induce and profit from massive 8 online piracy – piracy Defendants could stop, but refuse to. 9 5. Defendants operate a website as part of an online computer network 10 known as “BitTorrent.” Defendants do so to enable their users to locate and 11 download infringing copies of Plaintiffs’ valuable copyrighted motion pictures and 12 television shows for free and without authorization. Defendants operate their 13 website with the express object of promoting its use to infringe Plaintiffs’ 14 copyrights. 15 6. Defendants’ users simultaneously distribute infringing copies of those 16 same works to countless others around the world. As a direct result of Defendants’ 17 conduct, thousands of the most popular motion pictures and television shows – from 18 new releases that are still in theaters to blockbuster DVD releases to today’s most 19 popular television shows – are infringed every day. Absent Defendants’ active and 20 ongoing participation in the daily acts of infringement, this widespread unauthorized 21 copying and distribution of Plaintiffs’ valuable property simply could not happen on 22 the scale that it does. The harm to Plaintiffs, who invest millions of dollars and 23 enormous creative energies to produce their creative copyrighted works, is manifest 24 and irreparable. 25 Copyright Infringement and the BitTorrent Network 26 7. BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer network optimized for the copying and 27 distribution of large files. On a “peer-to-peer” network, the actual exchange of the 28 Loeb & Loeb A Limited Liability Partnership Including Professional Corporations Error! Unknown document property name. 3 1 files – i.e., the actual downloading and uploading – takes place directly between 2 users (or “peers”) of the network. Whether BitTorrent is used for legitimate 3 purposes or copyright infringement is determined by those who operate its websites 4 and its servers. In this case, the Defendants operate a BitTorrent website with the 5 object of enabling and fostering the illegal reproduction and distribution of copies of 6 Plaintiffs’ movies and television programs protected by copyright. 7 8. Defendants set up, maintain, and operate a website that, by design, 8 fosters widescale copyright infringement by users on the BitTorrent network. 9 Simply put, the Defendants’ website exists to entice and facilitate copyright 10 infringement, and materially contribute to such infringement – enabling Internet 11 users to quickly copy and transfer files, almost all of them infringing, many of them 12 Plaintiffs’ copyrighted movies and television programs. Defendants do so to profit 13 unlawfully from the distribution of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted movies and television 14 programs. 15 9. Downloading files using the BitTorrent network is straightforward. 16 Users access the defendants’ website that lists files – in this case movies and 17 television programs – that are available for download. By clicking on the file name, 18 an illegal copy of the movie or television program is automatically copied to a user’s 19 computer. That newly copied movie or television program is a perfect digital copy 20 – ready to be viewed, burned to a portable media like a DVD, and/or copied by and 21 distributed to another user. 22 10. The BitTorrent network is made up of three principal components: (a) a 23 BitTorrent “client” application, (b) indexing websites known as “torrent sites” and 24 (c) computer servers known as BitTorrent “trackers.” Each is necessary for the 25 operation of the network. 26 11. The BitTorrent network works as follows: users download a small 27 program that they install on their computers – the BitTorrent “client” application. 28 Loeb & Loeb A Limited Liability Partnership Including Professional Corporations Error! Unknown document property name. 4 1 The BitTorrent client is the users’ interface during the downloading process. There 2 are many different versions of BitTorrent clients, all of which are readily available 3 on the Internet for free. BitTorrent client applications do not have the ability to 4 search for files. To find files available for download, users must visit torrent sites 5 using any standard Internet browser. 6 12. A torrent site is a website that contains an index of files available on 7 the network (generally an extensive listing of movies and television programs, 8 among other copyrighted content). The torrent site hosts and distributes small files 9 known as “torrents.” Although torrents do not contain actual copies of the movie or 10 television program, they automatically and invisibly instruct a user’s computer 11 where to go and how to get the desired file. Torrents interact with specific trackers, 12 allowing the user to download the desired file. 13 13. A BitTorrent tracker manages the distribution of files, connecting 14 uploaders (those who are distributing a movie) with downloaders (those who are 15 copying a movie). A tracker functions in many respects like a “traffic cop,” 16 directing a BitTorrent user’s computer where to find users who have a particular 17 file, and then providing the user’s computer with access to those other users to 18 facilitate the download process. When a BitTorrent user seeks to download a movie 19 or television file, he or she merely clicks on a torrent file on a torrent site, and the 20 torrent file instructs the client software how to connect to a tracker that will identify 21 where the file is available in cyberspace. 22 14. Torrent sites play an integral role in the process of using BitTorrent to 23 download files. Without them, users could not identify, locate or download 24 infringing files. Indeed, the content available on the BitTorrent network is defined 25 entirely by what files the operators of torrent sites – such as Defendants – choose to 26 allow to be indexed and distributed. Defendants’ sites enable, cause, materially 27 28 Loeb & Loeb A Limited Liability Partnership Including Professional Corporations Error! Unknown document property name. 5 1 contribute to, foster and induct widespread copyright infringement of Plaintiffs’ 2 works. 3 The Parties 4 The Plaintiffs 5 15. Plaintiffs Columbia, Disney, Paramount, TriStar, Fox, Universal, 6 Universal Productions, and Warner Bros.

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