World Media Alliance Label, Inc. v. Believe SAS

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
• Decided: July 28, 2025
• Docket: 24-12079
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

USCA11 Case: 24-12079 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 07/28/2025 Page: 1 of 13

[DO NOT PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 24-12079 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________

WORLD MEDIA ALLIANCE LABEL, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, versus BELIEVE SAS, a.k.a. Believe Co., a.k.a. Believe, a.k.a. Believe Digital,

Defendant-Appellee,

YOUTUBE, LLC, et al., USCA11 Case: 24-12079 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 07/28/2025 Page: 2 of 13

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Defendants.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 1:23-cv-21894-FAM ____________________

Before LAGOA, MARCUS, and WILSON, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: World Media Alliance Label, Inc. (“WMA”) is a Sunny Isles Beach-based company that has contractual rights with musical art- ists and groups, owning the rights to the use of certain materials. In 2023, WMA brought this copyright infringement case -- concern- ing the content of a Russian music group called Tender May -- against Believe SAS (“Believe”), YouTube, and Google. Pursuant to a stipulation, WMA voluntarily dismissed YouTube and Google, making Believe, a French digital music company, the remaining de- fendant. Believe then moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction, and the district court agreed, concluding that WMA had failed to allege that there was specific or general juris- diction over Believe under Florida’s long-arm statute. WMA later moved for reconsideration under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), and the district court denied the motion. On appeal, WMA argues that: (1) the district court erred in dismissing the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction; (2) the USCA11 Case: 24-12079 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 07/28/2025 Page: 3 of 13

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district court abused its discretion in disregarding its request for ju- risdictional discovery; and (3) the district court abused its discretion in denying its Rule 59(e) motion. After careful review, we affirm. I. The relevant background is this. Tender May is a cult Soviet and Russian pop group in Orenburg, Russia. At its peak in the late 1980s, Tender May gathered stadiums of 40,000–60,000 people and set records for the number of concerts per day. The band is associ- ated with a singer, composer, manager, and producer named An- drei Razin, who initially funded the group. WMA is affiliated with Razin under contracts, and as a result of this affiliation, it claims to hold copyright to Tender May’s audio and video recordings, which it says makes it the designated copyright agent for Tender May and Razin, under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. For its part, Believe, says that Tender May, as a band, never transferred rights to any of its performances to Razin and that in 2022, Russian courts decided that Razin had no ownership rights in any of Tender May’s works. In Believe’s view, ownership rights to the songs in question are still being litigated in Russian courts, in conflict with WMA’s claims of ownership in the United States. The dispute underlying the instant case arose when Believe listed forty-four of Tender May’s works on YouTube, which WMA argues infringed its alleged copyright ownership in the works. Among other things, WMA’s complaint claimed that its intellectual property assets were “infringed, usurped, and attacked” and sought injunctive relief for copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. Ch. 5; USCA11 Case: 24-12079 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 07/28/2025 Page: 4 of 13

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$11,000,000 in damages under 17 U.S.C. § 504; costs and attorney fees under 17 U.S.C. § 505; and a claim for interference with bene- ficial business relationships. II. We review de novo the district court’s dismissal of a com- plaint for lack of personal jurisdiction, accepting the allegations in the complaint as true. SkyHop Techs., Inc. v. Narra, 58 F.4th 1211, 1222 (11th Cir. 2023). We review the district court’s “denial, grant, or limitation of a motion for discovery . . . for abuse of discretion.” United Techs. Corp. v. Mazer, 556 F.3d 1260, 1280 (11th Cir. 2009) (citation modified). We also review the denial of a motion for re- consideration for abuse of discretion. Wilchombe v. TeeVee Toons, Inc., 555 F.3d 949, 957 (11th Cir. 2009). For starters, we are unpersuaded by WMA’s argument that the district court erred in dismissing the complaint for lack of per- sonal jurisdiction. As we’ve long recognized, a court must have personal jurisdiction over the parties in a case because “[a] court without personal jurisdiction is powerless to take further action.” Posner v. Essex Ins. Co., Ltd., 178 F.3d 1209, 1214 n.6 (11th Cir. 1999). In this case, Believe is a nonresident defendant, so WMA must es- tablish a prima facie case of personal jurisdiction and “present[] enough evidence to withstand a motion for directed verdict.” Madara v. Hall, 916 F.2d 1510, 1514 (11th Cir. 1990). Vague and conclusory allegations do not satisfy this burden. See Snow v. Di- recTV, Inc., 450 F.3d 1314, 1318 (11th Cir. 2006). USCA11 Case: 24-12079 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 07/28/2025 Page: 5 of 13

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“A federal court sitting in diversity undertakes a two-step in- quiry in determining whether personal jurisdiction exists: the exer- cise of jurisdiction must (1) be appropriate under the state long-arm statute and (2) not violate the Due Process Clause of the Four- teenth Amendment.” Carmouche v. Tamborlee Mgmt., Inc., 789 F.3d 1201, 1203–04 (11th Cir. 2015). 1 A defendant can be subject to per- sonal jurisdiction under Florida’s long-arm statute in two ways: (1) through acts “that subject a defendant to specific personal jurisdic- tion -- that is, jurisdiction over suits that arise out of or relate to a defendant’s contacts with Florida”; or (2) through “general personal jurisdiction -- that is, jurisdiction over any claims against a defend- ant, whether or not they involve the defendant’s activities in Flor- ida -- if the defendant engages in ‘substantial and not isolated activ- ity’ in Florida.” Id. at 1204 (citing Fla. Stat. § 48.193(1)(a), (2)). Here, however, WMA failed to allege personal jurisdiction over Believe under either avenue of Florida’s long-arm statute. WMA did not allege specific personal jurisdiction. Under the stat- ute, an entity is subject to specific personal jurisdiction if, among other things, it “[c]ommit[s] a tortious act within this state.” Fla.

1 To the extent WMA claims that it did not need to satisfy Florida’s long-arm

statute because it was proceeding under federal law, this argument goes to subject-matter jurisdiction, which no one disputes, rather than personal jurisdic- tion. Both subject-matter jurisdiction and personal jurisdiction “must be met before a court has authority to adjudicate the rights of parties to a dispute.” Dykes v. Hosemann, 743 F.2d 1488, 1496 (11th Cir. 1984), on reh’g, 776 F.2d 942 (11th Cir. 1985) (citation modified). USCA11 Case: 24-12079 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 07/28/2025 Page: 6 of 13

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Stat. § 48.193(1)(a)(2). 2 This provision establishes specific personal jurisdiction “concern[ing] a nonresident defendant’s contacts with Florida only as those contacts related to the plaintiff’s cause of ac- tion.” Louis Vuitton Malletier, SA. v. Mosseri, 736 F.3d 1339, 1352 (11th Cir. 2013). Thus, jurisdiction under § 48.193(1) requires a “connexity” or connection “between the enumerated activity in Florida and the plaintiff’s cause of action.” SkyHop Techs., Inc. v. Narra, 58 F.4th 1211, 1228 (11th Cir. 2023) (quotations omitted). In this context, for us to find a “tortious act,” a plaintiff must plead sufficient facts to show that copyright infringement was com- mitted in the state of Florida. To do so, the Florida Supreme Court has required a plaintiff to demonstrate, at a minimum, that any ma- terial at issue was both accessible in Florida and actually accessed by people in the state. See Internet Solutions Corp. v. Marshall, 39 So. 3d 1201, 1203 (Fla. 2010). In Internet Solutions, the Florida Supreme Court addressed whether a nonresident’s allegedly defamatory posts on a website subjected her to personal jurisdiction in Florida

2 Another prong of the statute provides specific jurisdiction where a nonresi-

dent defendant engages in a business venture in Florida. Fla. Stat. § 48.193(1)(a)(1). WMA cites in its brief four “[f]actors to consider in determin- ing whether a nonresident defendant is carrying on business in Florida as the basis for long-arm jurisdiction.” It lists them as: “(1) the presence and opera- tion of an office in Florida; (2) the possession and maintenance of a license to do business in Florida; (3) the number of Florida clients served; and (4) the percentage of overall revenue gleaned from Florida clients.” After that, it says that “[a]ll these factors are applicable in the present case.” But none of these factors is pled in the complaint, nor are they even discussed with any detail at all in the complaint or WMA’s briefing. See Snow, 450 F.3d at 1318. USCA11 Case: 24-12079 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 07/28/2025 Page: 7 of 13

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under the long-arm statute. Id. at 1215. It held that to assert juris- diction, the party suing for defamation had to make a prima facie showing that “the material posted on the website about a Florida resident must not only be accessible in Florida, but also be accessed in Florida in order to constitute the commission of the tortious act of defamation within Florida under section 48.193(1)(b).” Id. at 1203. 3 The Florida Supreme Court ultimately concluded that the allegedly defamatory content posted on a website in that case was accessed in Florida where, through exhibits to the complaint, the plaintiff showed that a number of those who commented on the posts “appeared to be from Florida.” Id. at 1203–04, 1215. 4 Here, WMA’s complaint says that “[j]urisdiction is proper,” while acknowledging that Believe “has no registration in Florida” and is based out of France. WMA adds that venue is proper

3 Although Internet Solutions arose in the context of defamation, its discussion

involved postings on the World Wide Web generally -- analyzing when “a posting on a website, which is located on the World Wide Web, constitutes an electronic communication into Florida.” Id. at 1210–15. Its holding has been applied to various other contexts, including claims like trademark in- fringement. See, e.g., HSC Organics LLC v. Bymaster, No. 8:21-CV-1852-WFJ- CPT, 2022 WL 2275171, at *4 (M.D. Fla. June 23, 2022) (collecting cases). 4 See also Del Valle v. Trivago GMBH, 56 F. 4th 1265, 1274 (11th Cir. 2022) (Flor-

ida’s long-arm statute satisfied where the defendants “allegedly trafficked in . . . confiscated properties by profiting from web traffic generated by Florida residents’” interest in the properties and reservations through the defendants’ websites); Louis Vuitton, 736 F.3d at 1354 (Florida’s long-arm statute satisfied where the defendant’s “tortious acts . . . caused injury in Florida and thus oc- curred there because [the] trademark infringing goods were not only accessi- ble on the website, but were sold to Florida customers through that website”). USCA11 Case: 24-12079 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 07/28/2025 Page: 8 of 13

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because “WMA, a Florida corporation, has copyright, and infringe- ment of their rights has effect in Florida, where WMA is deprived of a portion of their revenues.” This bare claim does not establish the requisite prima facie case of personal jurisdiction. Notably, WMA never alleged in the complaint that the YouTube videos at issue were accessible in Florida. Nor did it al- lege that anyone in Florida actually accessed them. On appeal, all WMA says is that it “submitted” information showing that “Believe uses material owned by WMA on YouTube in the USA, specifically in Florida, where WMA is registered”; that Believe is a foreign com- pany that “illegally use[s] videos on YouTube, including for the au- dience in the U.S. and particularly in Florida”; and that “[w]hile act- ing out of France, Believe has been using tactics that can be com- pared to piracy in cyberspace . . . [and that] affected the residents of Florida, therefore allowing a U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to assert jurisdiction.” These claims -- which do not appear as allegations in the complaint -- are plainly insufficient. At most, WMA suggests that Florida’s (and all other states’) residents might have access to the allegedly infringing work online, but it does not state that Florida residents have actually accessed it. Without any allegation that Be- lieve engaged in potentially tortious conduct in the state of Florida, WMA has failed to allege specific personal jurisdiction under Flor- ida’s long-arm statute. The district court did not err in holding there was no specific personal jurisdiction over Believe. USCA11 Case: 24-12079 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 07/28/2025 Page: 9 of 13

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Nor did the district court err in concluding that WMA failed to allege general personal jurisdiction over Believe. General per- sonal jurisdiction stems from a “defendant’s substantial activity in Florida without regard to where the cause of action arose.” Louis Vuitton, 736 F.3d at 1352. “A defendant who is engaged in substan- tial and not isolated activity within [Florida] . . . is subject to the jurisdiction of [its] courts . . . whether or not the claim arises from that activity.” Fla. Stat. § 48.193(2). In other words, the defendant must have engaged in “continuous and systematic general business contact” with Florida. Snow, 450 F.3d at 1318. As this standard indicates, general personal jurisdiction over nonresident defendants is not to be lightly presumed. So, for ex- ample, in Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U.S. 117 (2014), the Supreme Court ruled that California courts had no general jurisdiction over Germany-based Daimler -- when its subsidiary, Mercedes-Benz USA had multiple facilities in California and was the largest sup- plier of luxury vehicles to the California market, and California ac- counted for 2.4% of Daimler’s worldwide sales. Id. at 123. Even so, the Daimler entity itself was found to lack “affiliations with the State [that] [we]re so continuous and systematic as to render it es- sentially at home in the forum State.” Id. at 139 (citation modified); see also Carmouche, 789 F.3d at 1204 (no general jurisdiction over Panama-based defendant despite it “having a Florida bank account and two Florida addresses . . . , purchasing insurance from Florida companies, filing a financing statement with the Florida Secretary of State, joining a non-profit trade organization based in Florida, and consenting to the jurisdiction of the Southern District of USCA11 Case: 24-12079 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 07/28/2025 Page: 10 of 13

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Florida for all lawsuits arising out of its agreements with Carni- val”); Fraser v. Smith, 594 F.3d 842, 844–47 (11th Cir. 2010) (no gen- eral jurisdiction over Turks/Caicos-based defendant although it maintained a website accessible from Florida, advertised in the Mi- ami Herald, procured insurance through a Florida agent, pur- chased about half its boats in Florida, and sent employees/repre- sentatives to Florida for training and to promote its services). In this case, WMA’s complaint nowhere alleges how or why Florida is the appropriate jurisdiction for Believe. According to the complaint, Believe is not located in Florida, nor does it own prop- erty or regularly conduct business in Florida. Further, the com- plaint acknowledges that Believe “is a French type business entity registered in France,” “enacted under the French law,” and “has no registration in Florida.” In other words, WMA admits that Believe is a French corporation registered in France with no specific ties with Florida, and -- other than claiming that WMA suffered dam- ages in Florida, which says nothing about Believe’s ties to Florida -- WMA never alleges any “substantial” contact between Believe and Florida that would give rise to general personal jurisdiction. Moreover, because WMA has not alleged specific or general personal jurisdiction under Florida’s long-arm statute, the district court properly dismissed the complaint on that basis alone without reaching due process. See Snow, 450 F.3d at 1319 (“Because [the de- fendant] is not subject to jurisdiction under Florida’s long-arm stat- ute, we need not address whether the Due Process Clause permits jurisdiction. We affirm the grant of [the] motion to dismiss.”). USCA11 Case: 24-12079 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 07/28/2025 Page: 11 of 13

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Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of WMA’s case against Believe for lack of personal jurisdiction. III. We also find no merit to WMA’s claim that the district court abused its discretion in disregarding its request for jurisdictional discovery. We’ve held that a district court does not abuse its dis- cretion by denying jurisdictional discovery if “the complaint was insufficient as a matter of law to establish a prima facie case that the district court had jurisdiction.” Butler v. Sukhoi Co., 579 F.3d 1307, 1314 (11th Cir. 2009). Nor does a district court abuse its discretion in rejecting jurisdictional discovery where the plaintiff “never for- mally moved the district court for jurisdictional discovery” and in- stead just “buried such requests in its briefs as a proposed alterna- tive to dismissing” the defendant. Mazer, 556 F.3d at 1280–81. As we’ve explained, WMA did not meet its initial burden to allege a prima facie case of personal jurisdiction. WMA never filed a formal motion for jurisdictional discovery -- instead, it put the request at the end of its response to the motion to dismiss. Nor, even more telling, did WMA did give the district court an explana- tion as to why jurisdictional discovery was needed or what facts it intended to discover. All it said, on the penultimate page of its op- position to the motion to dismiss is this: “[T]he plaintiffs have made a voluminous threshold showing that the defendants are subject to the jurisdiction of this Court. If that is insufficient, the Plaintiffs should be entitled to jurisdictional discovery.” USCA11 Case: 24-12079 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 07/28/2025 Page: 12 of 13

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Here, as in Mazer, “[t]he district court . . . did not so much deny discovery as it dismissed the case before discovery was taken. We cannot say that the district court erred, much less abused its discretion.” Id. (citation modified). Thus, we affirm as to this issue as well. IV. Finally, we are unconvinced by WMA’s argument that the district court abused its discretion in denying its post-dismissal mo- tion for relief under Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). Under this Rule, a party may, no later than 28 days after entry of a judgment, move a district court to alter or amend it. Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). “The only grounds for granting [a Rule 59] motion are newly-discovered evidence or manifest errors of law or fact.” PBT Real Estate, LLC v. Town of Palm Beach, 988 F.3d 1274, 1287 (11th Cir. 2021) (alteration in original). However, a party cannot “use a Rule 59(e) motion to reliti- gate old matters, raise argument or present evidence that could have been raised prior to the entry of judgment.” Michael Linet, Inc. v. Vill. of Wellington, 408 F.3d 757, 763 (11th Cir. 2005); Jacobs v. Tem- pur-Pedic Int’l, Inc., 626 F.3d 1327, 1344 (11th Cir. 2010) (affirming the denial of a motion for reconsideration where a party “did noth- ing but ask the district court to reexamine an unfavorable ruling”). “This prohibition includes new arguments that were previously available, but not pressed.” Wilchombe, 555 F.3d at 957 (citation modified). As we’ve explained, if the district court were to enter- tain these past-due arguments, it would amount to a waste of judi- cial resources and prevent the finality necessary to the judicial USCA11 Case: 24-12079 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 07/28/2025 Page: 13 of 13

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process. See Lussier v. Dugger, 904 F.2d 661, 667 (11th Cir. 1990) (“A busy district court need not allow itself to be imposed upon by the presentation of theories seriatim.”). Here, the district court did not abuse its discretion in deny- ing WMA’s motion for reconsideration. To the extent WMA tries to characterize the 340 pages attached to its motion as “new” evi- dence, we disagree. As the record reflects, none of the purportedly “new evidence” related to the issue of personal jurisdiction, nor was any of it actually “new.” And in any event, as we’ve explained, evidence only going to the merits does not enter into our analysis unless the plaintiff has satisfied its initial burden of making a prima facie showing of personal jurisdiction in its pleading. WMA has not done that. Rather, WMA has repeated its barebones request for jurisdictional discovery, still failing to show why it is entitled to any kind of relief.5 AFFIRMED.

5 WMA lastly argues -- only in its reply brief -- that the district court abused its

discretion in denying it leave to amend. Because WMA did not make this ar- gument in its initial brief, it is forfeited. See Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 683 (11th Cir. 2014) (“Arguments raised for the first time in a reply brief are not properly before a reviewing court.” (quoting United States v. Coy, 19 F.3d 629, 632 n.7 (11th Cir. 1994))). We also note that “[w]here a request for leave to file an amended complaint simply is imbedded within an opposition memorandum, the issue has not been raised properly.” Rosenberg v. Gould, 554 F.3d 962, 967 (11th Cir. 2009).