From time-to-time the Court of Appeals is called upon to apply principles developed decades or even centuries ago to issues presented by the era of electronic communications and commerce. The Court did just that in Penguin Group (USA) Inc. v. American Buddha, applying long-arm jurisdiction to out-of-state conduct allegedly constituting infringement of copyrights held by a New York-based publisher. In another decision, the Court resolved whether any of the three “accident” endorsements to the insured’s automobile insurance policy provided coverage for another’s intentional tort. In a third decision we discuss this month, the Court clarified the pleading standards for claims under the Unjust Conviction and Imprisonment Act.

Infringement Jurisdiction

Penguin Group (USA) Inc. v. American Buddha came before the Court from the Second Circuit through the certification procedure. However, the Court of Appeals, in a decision by Judge Victoria A. Graffeo, declined to answer the broad question posed by the federal court—under New York’s long-arm statute, where is the situs of the injury in a copyright infringement action—and instead addressed the reach of that statute in the circumstances of the case, namely alleged digital piracy. The Court held that, for purposes of CPLR 302(a)(3)(ii), where a defendant infringes on a copyright by publishing a protected work on the Internet, the situs of the injury is the copyright holder’s principal place of business.

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