Internet Jurisdiction in the United States

In “THE PATH OF INTERNET LAW: AN ANNOTATED GUIDE TO LEGAL LANDMARKS”, MICHAEL L. RUSTAD and DIANE D’ANGELO wrote:

“The Internet creates unique jurisdictional disputes because the technology respects no national borders. A large number of these disputes arose with the development of domain names. (96 See, e.g., Zippo Mfg. Co. v. Zippo Dot Com, Inc., 952 F. Supp. 1119 (W.D.Pa. 1997); Cybersell, Inc. v. Cybersell, Inc., 130 F.3d 414, 416 (9th Cir. 1997).

For example, in Panavision v. Toeppen, (97 141 F.3d 1316 (9th Cir. 1997); see also uBid, Inc. v. GoDaddy Group, Inc., 623 F.3d 421 (7th Cir. 2010) (holding that out-of-state defendant’s website was an insufficient basis for general jurisdiction)) a California company specializing in film equipment filed suit against Dennis Toeppen. The court found Toeppen’s domain name activities, described as domain name hijacking, to be sufficiently related to his website to support jurisdiction.

In the field of civil procedure, courts have had little difficulty in stretching the due process model of jurisdiction to cyberspace. The problem of adapting the American minimum contacts doctrine to cyberspace is that no other country follows a due process model for personal jurisdiction. (MICHAEL L. RUSTAD, INTERNET LAW IN A NUTSHELL, 82 (2009))

Internet-related jurisdiction disputes began as companies created and established corporate identities online. To date, there is no international convention that addresses Internet
jurisdiction, the choice of law, or the enforcement of judgments. Courts are beginning to address whether the First Amendment shields pseudonymous file distribution on BitTorrent networks. See, e.g., First Time Videos, LLC v. Does, No. C 11-01675 LB, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42376, at *7 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 14, 2011) (ruling that copyright owner of pornographic videos and photographs had good cause to unveil names and addresses of peer-to-peer users who distributed content without their permission).”