SAN FRANCISCO – A federal judge in California has ordered X-art parent company Malibu Media to prove the accuracy of the geolocation technology it uses to identify copyright infringers. If the company cannot or will not, the judge indicated he will dismiss current cases and bar Malibu from filing similar lawsuits in the future.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who hears all copyright infringement cases for the Northern District of California, said he is skeptical about Malibu’s litigation habits and the IP-mapping services provided to the company by MaxMind, which bills itself as “a leading provider of IP intelligence and online fraud prevention tools.” Other courts previously have questioned the accuracy of Maxmind’s tools, which connect IP addresses to data bits gathered from BitTorrent swarms. Malibu uses the MaxMind data to obtain warrants demanding internet service providers turn over personal information about the end-users Malibu claims pirated its content.
Alsup based much of his suspicion about Malibu and its lawsuits on what he called the “fourth wave in a monsoon of 235 actions that Malibu Media has filed in this district in the past 18 months.” Malibu withdrew more than half of them without specifying a reason. The practice has become much too common and represents a drain on court resources, Alsup indicated. He — and a passel of other judges nationwide — want to see what appear to be frivolous filings stop.
“Malibu Media’s voluntary dismissal without prejudice of groups of its cases is not a new pattern,” Alsup wrote in an order to show cause dated May 10. “A sizable portion of the cases from previous waves were terminated in the same way.
“The practice has just become more frequent, and it follows skepticism by the undersigned judge and others around the country about the accuracy of the MaxMind database,” the order continues. “…Malibu Media is hereby ordered to SHOW CAUSE at [May 16] hearing, why the Court should not bar further Malibu Media cases in this district until the accuracy of the geolocation technology is fully vetted.
“Malibu Media shall file a written statement, with all factual assertions supported by declarations sworn under the penalty of perjury by MAY 16 AT NOON.
“To be clear, this order applies even if Malibu Media voluntarily dismisses this action,” Alsup wrote.
Alsup has good reason to be wary of MaxMind’s technology: When the digital bloodhound can’t trace an IP address any more precisely than “it’s somewhere in the U.S.,” MaxMind’s software maps the IP address to the geographical center of the country.
That spot is in Kansas. It’s occupied by a small farm whose tenants have internet access but rarely use the service.
By mid-2016, more than 600 million IP addresses had been mapped to the farm, causing no end of trouble for the people who live there.
