United States Ninth Circuit

In a suit against two end-users of satellite television pirating technology, the district court's refusal to grant default judgment on plaintiff's claims under 47 U.S.C. section 605(e)(4) is affirmed where: 1) appellees' use of pirating technology did not constitute assembly and modification of piracy devices in violation of that portion of the statute, since that subsection does not apply to end-users of pirating technology; and 2) to hold otherwise would collapse the statutory distinction between end-users and manufacturers.

Appellate Information

• Argued 05/16/2007
• Decided 09/11/2007
• Published 09/11/2007

Judges

• Before:  B. FLETCHER, EUGENE E. SILER, JR., and HAWKINS, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Marc J. Zwillinger, Washington, DC;  Howard R. Rubin, James A. Silver, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP, Washington, DC;  Suzanne M. Burke, Buschalter Nemer, Irvine, CA, for the plaintiff-appellant., Jason Schultz, Electronic Frontier Foundation, San Francisco, CA;  Jennifer Stisa Granick, Trevor D. Dryer, Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Law School Cyberlaw Clinic, Stanford, CA, for the amicus curiae.