Roland Chambers, Jr. v. Amazon.com Inc.

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 15-1767
ROLAND CHAMBERS, JR.,
Plaintiff – Appellant,
v.
AMAZON.COM INC.; APPLE INC.; ARTIST DIRECT.COM; BOP.FM;
CCMUSIC.COM; CD BABY; CD UNIVERSE; HBDIRECT.COM;
RAKUTEN.COM; SEARS.COM; TOWER.COM,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Columbia. Mary G. Lewis, District Judge.
(3:14-cv-04890-MGL)
Submitted: November 30, 2015 Decided: December 16, 2015
Before AGEE, DIAZ, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Roland Chambers, Jr., Appellant Pro Se.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Roland Chambers, Jr., appeals the district court’s order
adopting the recommendation of the magistrate judge and
summarily dismissing this action alleging violations of the
Copyright Act of 1976 and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA). We affirm.
I
In his complaint, Chambers stated that in 2001 he provided
to Defendant CD Baby, an Oregon-based business entity, five
compact discs (CD’s) containing 11 songs and one video, with CD
Baby acting as an “online consignor.” Reliable Brokering,
described as “a business owned and operated by Roland Chambers,”
allegedly owned copyrights on six of the 12 pieces of work. In
2014, Chambers discovered that the material was allegedly
selling beyond the quantity produced, and in various formats
including digital files and physical discs. CD Baby did not pay
Chambers for any of the CD’s until 2014, when Chambers purchased
a CD from Amazon.com. Chambers discovered that CD Baby was
selling the copyrighted works in digital form, although Chambers
had not made the material available in such form. Additionally,
he discovered that other Defendants, including Amazon.com and
Apple, Inc., were offering the copyrighted material for sale in
digital and/or physical form. Chambers claimed violations of
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the Copyright Act and the DMCA. He sought damages exceeding $4
billion from various Defendants.
The magistrate judge granted leave to proceed in forma
pauperis and recommended summary dismissal. The magistrate
judge found that Chambers had definitively stated facts showing
that only one CD had been sold and, therefore, he failed to
provide support for his claim that any defendant made an
unauthorized copy of the copyrighted material. The district
court overruled Chambers’ objections and adopted the
recommendation, finding that the complaint and attachments
thereto failed to provide sufficient factual support for a cause
of action under either the Copyright Act or the DMCA.
II
Although the district court did not articulate a basis for
its dismissal, it appears that the court was exercising its
authority under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2) (2012) to dismiss
Chambers’ in forma pauperis action sua sponte for failure to
state a claim. The truncated treatment given the claims —
dismissing the action without ordering service of process on
Defendants — appears consistent with what Congress envisioned
with § 1915(e), namely, requiring dismissal of insubstantial
claims without requiring defendants to file responsive
pleadings. See Cochran v. Morris, 73 F.3d 1310, 1315 (4th Cir.
1996) (en banc) (concluding that abbreviated treatment of
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complaint was evidence of court’s intent to exercise its
dismissal authority under predecessor to § 1915(e)).
Section 1915(e)(2) directs a district court to dismiss a
case if the court finds that it is frivolous or malicious, fails
to state a claim, or seeks damages from a defendant who is
immune from such relief. “A complaint is subject to dismissal
for failure to state a claim if the allegations, taken as true,
show the plaintiff is not entitled to relief.” Jones v. Bock,
549 U.S. 199, 215 (2007). Although “the allegations in pro se
complaints should be liberally construed,” De’Lonta v. Angelone,
330 F.3d 630, 633 (4th Cir. 2003), the complaint must contain
factual allegations sufficient “to raise a right to relief above
the speculative level” and “to state a claim to relief that is
plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S.
544, 555, 570 (2007). “Determining whether a complaint states a
plausible claim for relief [is] . . . a context-specific task
that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial
experience and common sense.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662,
679 (2009). We review de novo a § 1915(e)(2) dismissal.
Slade v. Hampton Rds. Reg’l Jail, 407 F.3d 243, 248 (4th Cir.
2005).
III
“To establish a claim for copyright infringement under the
Copyright Act . . . , a plaintiff must prove that [he] possesses
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a valid copyright and that the defendant copied elements of
[the] work that are original and protectable.” Copeland v.
Bieber, 789 F.3d 484, 488 (4th Cir. 2015). “Absent direct proof
of copying, which is hard to come by, a plaintiff may prove
copying indirectly, with evidence showing that the defendant had
access to the copyrighted work and that the purported copy is
‘substantially similar’ to the original.” Id.Chambers did not set forth sufficient facts to state a
plausible claim of copyright infringement. Although he appeared
to identify a copyright by number, he stated that the copyright
was registered to Reliable Brokering — not to himself. Reliable
Brokering was simply described as “a business owned and operated
by Roland Chambers, Jr.” Chambers did not provide any details
about the structure of Reliable Brokering. Chambers asserted in
the complaint that numerous copies of his CD — more than the
five he originally supplied CD Baby — were available from
various Defendants but provided no evidence of this. We find
that Chambers did not set forth sufficient facts in his
complaint to establish either that he possessed a valid
copyright or that any of the Defendants reproduced copyrighted
work.
Through the DMCA, “Congress sought to mitigate the problems
presented by copyright enforcement in the digital age.” MDY
Indus., LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., 629 F.3d 928, 942
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(9th Cir. 2010). “The DMCA contains three provisions directed
at the circumvention of copyright owners’ technological
measures” that are either designed to control access to
copyrighted works or to protect a copyright owner’s rights. Id.“A copyright owner alleging a violation of [the DMCA] must prove
that the circumvention of the technological measure either
infringes or facilitates infringing a right protected by the
Copyright Act.” Storage Tech. Corp. v. Custom Hardware
Engineering & Consulting, Inc., 421 F.3d 1307, 1318 (Fed. Cir.
2005) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Chambers did not state any facts from which it might
reasonably be inferred that there was a violation of the DMCA.
Specifically, he did not claim to have put into place a
technological measure that would have protected a copyright or
that any Defendant circumvented such a measure. Thus, dismissal
of the complaint insofar as it claimed a DMCA violation was
proper.
IV
We therefore affirm. We dispense with oral argument
because the facts and legal arguments are adequately presented
in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the
decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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