Berklee College of Music alleged in a complaint against Music Industry Educators that MIE’s website used several paragraphs copied from Berklee’s online course descriptions along with marks that are similar to Berklee’s trademarks. MIE’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction was denied by Judge Tauro.
MIE’s only connections to Massachusetts:
• The allegedly copied content came from Berklee’s servers in Mass.
• MIE’s website was available in Mass.
• Four individuals from Mass. had emailed MIE about taking courses, but MIE did not respond
Despite these somewhat tenuous connections to the state, Judge Tauro found that personal jurisdiction existed. A variety of factors and many cases were discussed, but the decision seemed to boil down to the following logic:
litigation in a forum where Plaintiff may readily access resources necessary to efficiently conclude the matter and bring those who misuse intellectual property to justice serves the interest of the judicial system in obtaining the most effective resolution of the controversy…Requiring alleged infringers such as MIE to bear the burden of traveling to a forum in which their voluntary actions have caused foreseeable injury encourages them to consider this burden before they act.
(Decision at 10.)
The lesson to be learned from this, and other D. Mass. cases, is that disputes involving Massachusetts intellectual property will be decided in Massachusetts.
An additional motion to dismiss a 93A claim for preemption under the Copyright Act was denied since it relied on both copyright and trademark theories.
Berklee College of Music, Inc. v. Music Indus. Educators, Inc., 09-11627-JLT (D. Mass. August 4, 2010)