Parties Agree to Dismiss 4th Circuit Appeal vs. ‘Stream-Ripping’ Defendant

A dozen plaintiff-appellee record labels and defendant-appellant Tofig Kurbanov agreed to dismissal with prejudice of Kurbanov’s appeal under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 42(b), said their joint stipulation Tuesday (docket 23-1774) in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Each party will bear its own attorneys’ fees, but Kurbanov is responsible for paying any 4th Circuit fees that are due, said the stipulation. Kurbanov was appealing the district court’s February 2022 order awarding the labels nearly $83,000 in statutory damages under the Copyright Act and Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Kurbanov was found in a December 2021 default judgment to have run Flvto.biz, a website capable of “stream-ripping” copyrighted songs and distributing them to tens of millions of subscribers for downloading onto mobile devices. All the activity was done without the labels' permission or authorization, said the default judgment. The 4th Circuit appeal was docketed only as recently as July 26.