Bey v. Schneider

• Court: District Court, S.D. California
• Decided: January 16, 2024
• Docket: 3:23-cv-01042
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 BRITANYA RANITA BEY, Case No. 23-cv-1042-BAS-BGS 12 Plaintiff, ORDER DISMISSING COMPLAINT 13 v. WITH PREJUDICE (ECF No. 5) 14 STEVE SCHNEIDER, et al., 15 Defendants. 16 17 On August 3, 2023, this Court granted Plaintiff’s request to proceed in forma 18 pauperis but dismissed the Complaint without prejudice for failure to state a claim. (ECF 19 No. 3.). The Court ordered Plaintiff to file an amended complaint no later than September 20 5, 2023. (Id.) When Plaintiff failed to file an amended complaint, the Court issued an 21 Order to Show Cause, giving Plaintiff additional time to file an amended complaint and 22 warning that failure to file by the new date would result in dismissal of the action. (ECF 23 No. 4.) Plaintiff has now filed an Amended Complaint. (ECF No. 5.) Unfortunately, the 24 Amended Complaint fares no better than the Original Complaint. 25 I. ANALYSIS 26 The Amended Complaint appears to allege copyright infringement against nine 27 named individuals, none of whom reside in this district. Similar to the Original Complaint, 28 Plaintiff once again alleges that she “put Defendants on notice for copyright infringement 1 on intellectual property of a private trust Britanya Ranita Lewis © and a photograph of a 2 flesh and blood woman, published October 13, 2009, on Defendant’s public network 3 (WAFB9).” (Amended Complaint.) 4 In order to allege a copyright infringement, Plaintiff must first allege that she owned 5 a valid copyrighted work and, second that Defendants copied that copyrighted work. 6 Unicolors, Inc. v. Urb. Outfitters, Inc., 853 F.3d 980, 984 (9th Cir. 2017). Despite giving 7 Plaintiff leave to amend, Plaintiff still fails to allege either of these elements. It is not clear 8 from the Amended Complaint what validly copyrighted work she claims to own or how 9 this copyrighted work was copied by the Defendants. 10 There are additional problems with the allegations in the Amended Complaint. First, 11 since Plaintiff alleges the publication occurred on October 13, 2009, it appears to be outside 12 the three-year statute of limitations. 17 U.S.C. § 507(b). Second, the Court is concerned 13 about the lack of allegations supporting personal jurisdiction against the nine listed 14 defendants who, according to the Amended Complaint, live in Atlanta, Georgia, Colorado 15 Springs, Colorado and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. See Goldberg v. Cameron, 482 F. Supp. 16 2d 1136, 1143 (N.D. Cal. 2007) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 1400(a) (Copyright actions may be 17 brought in the district in which the defendant or his agent resides. “The Ninth Circuit has 18 interpreted the statute to mean that venue ‘is proper in any judicial district in which the 19 defendant would be amenable to personal jurisdiction if the district were a separate state,’” 20 quoting Columbia Pictures Television v. Krypton Broad. of Birmingham, Inc., 106 F.3d 21 284, 288 (9th Cir. 1997), rev’d on other grounds sub nom. Feltner v. Columbia Pictures 22 Television, Inc., 523 U.S. 340 (1998).)) And, finally, Plaintiff fails to allege specific 23 allegations against each of the nine separate individual defendants. See Leer v. Murphy, 24 844 F.2d 628, 634 (9th Cir. 1988) (stating that sweeping conclusory allegations about all 25 defendants are not sufficient and a plaintiff must set forth specific facts as to each 26 individual defendant’s liability). 27 However, since the Plaintiff fails to allege the first fundamental element necessary 28 for a copyright infringement action, that is, a valid copyright, the court finds dismissal is | ||}proper. Additionally, since Plaintiff fails to allege a valid copyright, despite being given 2 || leave by the Court to amend to add this element, the Court finds dismissal should be with 3 prejudice. See Foman vy. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962) (stating that leave to amend 4 ||should be freely given when justice so requires, but the court may deny leave to amend 5 || when a plaintiff repeatedly fails to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed or 6 || because further amendment is futile). 7 II. CONCLUSION 8 Plaintiff fails to allege either element of copyright infringement despite being given 9 leave to do so. Hence, this Court, pursuant to its swa sponte duty to screen complaints 10 || under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B), dismisses the Amended Complaint for failure to state a 11 ||claim. Furthermore, since Plaintiff fails to cure the deficiencies in the Complaint despite 12 || being given leave by the Court to do so, the Court DISMISSES the Amended Complaint 13 || with prejudice. The Clerk is directed to close the case. 14 IT IS SO ORDERED. 15 ) 16 ||[DATED: January 16, 2024 Lin A (Ayphan 6 17 United States District Judge 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 4]