RCN Telecom Moves for Dismissal of SMV’s DMCA Claims as Time-Barred

Screen Media Ventures’ Dec. 27 complaint against RCN Telecom Services for secondary copyright infringement and secondary liability under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (see 2312290005) is the latest development in SMV’s quest “to add itself and hundreds of its works to an unrelated copyright action,” said RCN’s motion to dismiss Monday (docket 3:23-cv-23356) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey. That unrelated action, Bodyguard Productions v. RCN Telecom Services (docket 3:21-cv-15310), was filed in the same district nearly three years ago. SMV’s complaint alleges that RCN’s subscribers, or those using their subscriptions, use software such as BitTorrent to infringe SMV’s “exclusive rights of reproduction and distribution.” Whatever the plaintiff’s motivation may be for seeking to join or consolidate this action with Bodyguard, its claims can’t survive a motion to dismiss because they are time-barred, said RCN’s memorandum of law in support of its motion to dismiss. All SMV’s claims are subject to a three-year statute of limitations, and SMV expressly alleges that the underlying acts of copyright infringement and violations of the DMCA occurred as early as August 2018, said the memorandum. The plaintiff doesn’t allege that any relevant act of infringement or violation of the DMCA “occurred within the limitations period,” it said. SMV’s secondary liability claims should be dismissed “for a host of other reasons as well,” it said. The U.S. Supreme Court recently recognized, in its 2023 decision in Twitter v. Taamneh, that it would run roughshod over the typical limits on tort liability to effectively hold any sort of communication provider liable for any sort of wrongdoing merely for knowing that the wrongdoers were using its services and failing to stop them, it said. That principle, which is consistent with decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence on secondary liability, “forecloses” SMV’s claims here, said the memorandum. The plaintiff has also failed to allege facts supporting necessary elements of its claims for contributory and vicarious liability, it said.