Alexander Stross v. Google, LLC

• Court: District Court, C.D. California
• Decided: May 4, 2023
• Docket: 2:22-cv-04426
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 'O' 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 CV 22-04426-RSWL-KSx 12 ALEXANDER STROSS, ORDER re: 13 Plaintiff, Defendant’s Motion to 14 v. Consolidate Cases [27] 15 GOOGLE, LLC, 16 Defendant. 17 18 Plaintiff Alexander Stross (“Plaintiff”) brings 19 this Action against Defendant Google, LLC (“Defendant”) 20 alleging contributory copyright infringement. Currently 21 before the Court is Defendant’s Motion to Consolidate 22 Cases (“Motion”) [27]. 23 Having reviewed all papers submitted pertaining to 24 the Motion, the Court NOW FINDS AND RULES AS FOLLOWS: 25 the Court DENIES Defendant’s Motion. 26 /// 27 /// 28 1 I. BACKGROUND

2 A. Factual Background

3 Plaintiff alleges in his Complaint that: 4 Plaintiff is a professional photographer. Compl. ¶ 5 4, ECF No. 1. Plaintiff owns 214 original photographs 6 and videos (“Subject Works”) registered with the U.S. 7 Copyright Office. Id. ¶ 13. Defendant is a limited 8 liability company that runs a successful online 9 multimedia sharing and social media website called 10 “YouTube,” which spreads misinformation and causes 11 rampant copyright infringement. Id. ¶ 8. 12 YouTube users agree to not infringe on “anyone 13 else’s rights” while Defendant maintains the right and 14 ability to remove content which infringes on others’ 15 intellectual property. Id. ¶ 9. Defendant has a policy 16 in place for when copyright holders believe that content 17 on YouTube infringes on their copyrights, in which the 18 copyright holders can request that Defendant remove the 19 infringing content from YouTube. Id. ¶¶ 10-11. 20 Defendant can also suspend or terminate users’ access to 21 YouTube if they continue to infringe on others’ 22 copyrights. Id. ¶ 12. 23 YouTube users have used and displayed Plaintiff’s 24 Subject Works without Plaintiff’s consent. Id. ¶ 14. 25 On March 20, 2021, Plaintiff requested that Defendant 26 remove the Subject Works from YouTube. Id. ¶ 15. On 27 March 25, 2021, Plaintiff sent another request to 28 Defendant to take down and remove the Subject Works from 1 YouTube. Id. ¶ 17. Defendant never complied with

2 Plaintiff’s requests. Id. ¶¶ 16, 18. Even after

3 multiple requests by Plaintiff, Defendant still failed 4 to terminate the infringing users’ YouTube access and 5 take down the Subject Works from YouTube. Id. ¶¶ 19-25. 6 B. Procedural Background 7 On June 28, 2022, Plaintiff filed his Complaint 8 [1]. On August 30, 2022, Plaintiff filed a Notice of 9 Related Cases designating Alexander Stross v. Sourav 10 Khatua et al., Case No. 2:22-cv-05168-JFW-PVC 11 (the “Khatua Case”) as related to the instant Action 12 [21]. In Alexander Stross v. Sourav Khatua, a set of 13 defendants (the “Khatua Defendants”) allegedly infringed 14 on a few of the Subject Works that are at issue in this 15 Action. On August 31, 2022, the Court declined the 16 requested transfer of Alexander Stross v. Sourav Khatua. 17 On January 10, 2023, Defendant filed the instant 18 Motion [27] to consolidate the Khatua Case with this 19 instant Action. On January 24, 2023, Plaintiff opposed 20 [31]. On January 31, 2023, Defendant replied [33]. 21 II. DISCUSSION 22 A. Legal Standard 23 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (“Rule”) 42(a) 24 permits a court to consolidate actions involving a 25 common question of law or fact if doing so serves the 26 purposes of judicial economy and convenience. “The 27 district court has broad discretion under this rule to 28 consolidate cases pending in the same district.” Inv. 1 Rsch. Co. v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for Cent. Dist. Of Cal., 877

2 F.2d 777 (9th Cir. 1989). In determining whether to

3 consolidate actions, the court weighs the interest of 4 judicial convenience against the potential for delay, 5 confusion, and prejudice caused by consolidation. Sw. 6 Marine, Inc., v. Triple a Mach. Shop, Inc., 720 F. Supp. 7 805, 807 (N.D. Cal. 1989). 8 B. Discussion 9 Defendant seeks to consolidate Alexander Stross v. 10 Sourav Khatua et al., Case No. 2:22-cv-05168-JFW-PVC and 11 this Action (collectively the “Cases”). See generally 12 Def.’s Mot. to Consolidate Cases (“Mot.”), ECF No. 27. 13 Defendant asserts that the two Cases should be 14 consolidated because “the alleged direct infringement by 15 the [Khatua Defendants] in part forms the basis of 16 [Plaintiff’s] contributory infringement claims against 17 [Defendant].” Id. at 2:12-14. However, “[t]he 18 existence of common issues, while a prerequisite to 19 consolidation, does not compel consolidation.” Dodaro 20 v. Standard Pac. Corp., No. EDCV 09-1666-VAP (OPx), 2009 21 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 136377, at *8 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 16, 22 2009). In determining whether to consolidate cases, a 23 court weighs “the saving of time and effort 24 consolidation would produce” against “any inconvenience, 25 delay, or expense that it would cause.” Thomas Inv. 26 Partners, Ltd. v. United States, 444 F. App’x 190, 193 27 (9th Cir. 2011). 28 Defendant’s Motion is DENIED because consolidation 1 would lead to inefficiency and/or inconvenience. See

2 Bear, Ltd. Liab. Co. v. Marine Grp. Boat Works, Ltd.

3 Liab. Co., No. 3:14-cv-2960-BTM-BLM, 2016 U.S. Dist. 4 LEXIS 131759, at *6 (S.D. Cal. Sep. 23, 2016) (“[I]t 5 remains within the Court’s discretion to deny 6 consolidation if it will lead to inefficiency or 7 inconvenience.”). The Khatua Case involves only three 8 alleged direct infringers of the eighty-seven alleged 9 direct infringers in this Action. See Olaplex, LLC v. 10 Groupon, Inc., No. CV 18-8641 PA (RAOx), 2019 U.S. Dist. 11 LEXIS 231553, at *4 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 19, 2019) (denying a 12 motion to consolidate because the two cases “involve[d] 13 distinct and non-overlapping groups of defendants.”). 14 Furthermore, the Khatua Case involves only fifteen of 15 the 214 allegedly infringing photographs in this Action. 16 See Klauber Bros., Inc. v. Forever 21 Retail, Inc., No. 17 CV 14-2148 DMG (JCx), 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 186924, at 18 *5-6 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 9, 2015) (denying a motion to 19 consolidate copyright cases because one of the cases 20 included claims over infringement of copyrighted works 21 that the other two cases did not include). 22 Consolidating cases may create inefficiency when 23 “the two actions [] are at [] different stages of 24 litigation.” Snyder v. Nationstar Mortg. LLC, No. 15- 25 cv-03049-JSC, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 83962, at *9 26 (N.D. Cal. June 28, 2016). Here, Plaintiff is still 27 trying to serve the Khatua Defendants in the Khatua 28 Case, while in this Action, the Court has already set a 1 Scheduling Order with discovery deadlines and trial

2 dates approaching. See Dean v. S. Cal. Edison, No. ED

3 CV 12-01435-MWF (DTBx), 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 200318, at 4 *6 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 19, 2013) (denying a motion to 5 consolidate because while in one action the parties 6 “began submitting their initial disclosures,” in the 7 other action “the parties [had] not attended a 8 scheduling conference, the court [had] issued no 9 deadlines, and discovery [had] not begun.”). 10 Furthermore, the direct infringement claim in the Khatua 11 Case does not raise the same factual and legal questions 12 as the contributory infringement claim in this Action. 13 See Cleveland v. Ludwig Inst. for Cancer Rsch. Ltd., No. 14 19cv2141 JM(JLB), 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124445, at *8 15 (S.D. Cal. July 2, 2021) (“[W]hile the two cases have 16 some factual similarities, [the] [p]laintiffs have 17 alleged different causes of action in these cases, 18 thereby presenting the court with different legal 19 questions.”). 20 Therefore, given that the differences between the 21 two Cases will create more confusion and delay rather 22 than save time and effort, the Court DENIES Defendant’s 23 Motion. 24 /// 25 /// 26 /// 27 /// 28 /// 1 III. CONCLUSION 2 Based on the foregoing, the Court DENIES

3 Defendant’s Motion to Consolidate Cases. 4 5 IT IS SO ORDERED. 6 7 DATED: May 4, 2023 /s/Ronald S.W. Lew HONORABLE RONALD S.W. LEW 8 Senior U.S. District Judge 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28