IMS Inquiry Management Systems Ltd. v. Berkshire Information Systems, Inc.
307 F.Supp.2d 521
In the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
Case Number 03 Civ 2183 (NRB)
Before District Judge Buchwald
Decided on February 23, 2004

Relevancy of the Case: Validity of CFAA claims in a case involving substantial copying of the plaintiff’s website and its features

Statutes and Provisions Involved

• The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030
• The Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998

Relevant Facts of the Case

• The plaintiff is a Canadian corporation providing advertising tracking information to its clients.
• They operate a web-based service called e-Basket, available exclusively to its clients to track magazine advertising.
• The defendants introduced a competing tracking service called marketshareinfo.com.
• The plaintiff alleges that the defendant has intentionally and unauthorisedly accessed and copied content from its tracking service. This has resulted in the defendant’s service incorporating original copyrightable elements from the former.
• Further, the plaintiff alleges that the defendant used user identification credentials to breach their agreements and have caused irreparable harm, incurring costs of more than $5,000.

Prominent Arguments by the Counsels

• The defendant’s counsel argued that the plaintiff has failed to allege the suffering of damage as defined under the CFAA. Section 1030(a)(2)(c) does not provide a civil cause of action. Further, the counsel argued that the court lacks jurisdiction to hear the copyright infringement claim.
• The plaintiff claimed that the defendant circumvented a technological measure implemented to protect its work, which violated its rights under the DMCA.

Opinion of the Bench

• The plaintiff has defined the damages as required by the CFAA. Moreover, data offered through its e-Basket program is for its customers’ exclusive use and not for competitor appropriation.
• The plaintiff has claimed that the defendant accessed its website around March 2002. However, their portal’s copyright registration date is March 07, 2003.
• Circumvention includes descrambling, decrypting, avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactivating, or impairing a technical measure.

Final Decision

• The court scheduled a pretrial conference for the plaintiff’s CFAA claims and decided to exercise its supplemental jurisdiction over the plaintiff’s state law claims.

Srikari Ammanamanchi, an undergraduate student at the NALSAR University of Law, prepared this case summary during her internship with The Cyber Blog India in May/June 2022.