Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_10-cv-00294/USCOURTS-caed-2_10-cv-00294-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 820
Nature of Suit: Copyright
Cause of Action: 17:101 Copyright Infringement

---

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

1

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

----oo0oo----

ATPAC, INC., a California

Corporation,

Plaintiff,

 v.

APTITUDE SOLUTIONS, INC., a

Florida Corporation, COUNTY OF

NEVADA, a California County,

and GREGORY J. DIAZ, an

individual, 

Defendants. /

NO. CIV. 2:10-294 WBS KJM

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER RE:

MOTION TO DISMISS, MOTION FOR

JUDGMENT ON THE PLEADINGS, AND

MOTION TO STRIKE

----oo0oo----

Plaintiff AtPac, Inc. (“AtPac”) filed this action

against defendants Aptitude Solutions, Inc. (“Aptitude”), County

of Nevada, and Gregory J. Diaz alleging breach of contract,

misappropriation of trade secrets, copyright infringement, and

violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”), 18 U.S.C.

§ 1030 et seq. Defendants move to dismiss and move for judgment

on the pleadings on plaintiff’s fourth cause of action pursuant

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 1 of 16
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

2

to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and 12(c) for

failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, and to

strike plaintiff’s prayer for statutory damages for its third

cause of action for copyright infringement pursuant to Rule 12(f)

because plaintiff is not entitled to statutory damages as a

matter of law. 

I. Factual and Procedural Background

AtPac provides software and consulting services related

to county clerk-recorder information imaging systems. (Compl. ¶

3.) These systems are computer-based and designed to, inter

alia, electronically receive, store, and organize information

that is within the purview of a county clerk-recorder and store

images of relevant documents associated with this information. 

(Id.) AtPac’s clerk-recorder imaging information software is

distributed under the mark “CRiis.” (Id.) In 1999, AtPac

allegedly entered into a License Agreement with County of Nevada

for the CRiis software and related services to help County of

Nevada electronically maintain and organize public information. 

(Id. ¶ 12.) The License Agreement was allegedly amended between

2001 and 2006, the most recent of which extended the term of the

License Agreement until June 30, 2010. (Id. ¶ 13.) 

The License Agreement allegedly provides, inter alia,

that AtPac retains title to the software, that the software is

trade secrets and that County of Nevada will not release or

disclose the information to third parties (Id. ¶ 14), that County

of Nevada will notify AtPac immediately of any known or suspected

unauthorized use or access of the CRiis software (Id. ¶ 16), and

that all documents provided to County of Nevada may not be

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 2 of 16
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

3

reproduced by County of Nevada (Id. ¶ 17). California law

governs the License Agreement. (Id. ¶ 22.) 

In November 2008, Diaz, the Clerk-Recorder of County of

Nevada, allegedly notified AtPac that County of Nevada intended

to terminate the License Agreement and obtain the services of

Aptitude, one of AtPac’s competitors. (Id. ¶ 23.) Diaz

allegedly rejected AtPac’s offer to help County of Nevada extract

the data from AtPac’s files and convert it to a form usable by

Aptitude. (Id.) Diaz allegedly represented in a January 8, 2008

letter that County of Nevada would extract the data from the

AtPac files on its own, and that County of Nevada would not

provide AtPac’s trade secret information to Aptitude or save the

trade secret and proprietary information. (Id. ¶¶ 24-25.) On

January 13, 2009, County of Nevada allegedly ratified an

indemnification agreement between Aptitude and County of Nevada,

indemnifying Aptitude for claims related to “extraction and

migration of County data for the system conversion.” (Id. ¶ 26.) 

AtPac alleges that County of Nevada did not perform the

data extraction itself, and that it instead provided Aptitude

with AtPac’s trade secret and copyright-protected information. 

(Id. ¶¶ 28-30.) Specifically, AtPac alleges that Diaz and County

of Nevada copied and provided this information through e-mail

communications and through a public, non-secure file transfer

protocol (“FTP”) site entitled “Aptitude FTP” without AtPac’s

authorization. (Id. ¶¶ 29-33.) Diaz and County of Nevada

allegedly provided Aptitude with “full and unfettered access” to

the server located in County of Nevada’s offices on which AtPac

trade secret information and the CRiis source code are stored

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 3 of 16
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

4

without AtPac’s authorization. (Id. ¶ 34.) 

 Plaintiff filed its Complaint on February 3, 2010, 

(Docket No. 1) and Aptitude and Diaz filed their Answer on March

19, 2010. (Docket No. 10.) Presently before the court are

County of Nevada’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s fourth cause of

action for violation of the CFAA (Docket No. 13) and Aptitude and

Diaz’s motion for judgment on the pleadings on plaintiff’s fourth

cause of action for violation of the CFAA, as well as each

defendant’s motion to strike plaintiff’s prayer for statutory

damages. 

II. Discussion

On a motion to dismiss, the court must accept the

allegations in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable

inferences in favor of the plaintiff. Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416

U.S. 232, 236 (1974), overruled on other grounds by Davis v.

Scherer, 468 U.S. 183 (1984); Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S. 319, 322

(1972). To survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff needs to

plead “only enough facts to state a claim to relief that is

plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 127 S. Ct.

1955, 1974 (2007). This “plausibility standard,” however, “asks

for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted

unlawfully,” and where a complaint pleads facts that are “merely

consistent with” a defendant's liability, it “stops short of the

line between possibility and plausibility.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal,

129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at

556-57).

Judgment on the pleadings is appropriate after the

pleadings have closed when, on the face of those pleadings,

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 4 of 16
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

1 The motions differ in only two respects:

(1) the timing (a motion for judgment on the pleadings is

usually brought after an answer has been filed, whereas

a motion to dismiss is typically brought before an answer

is filed) . . . and (2) the party bringing the motion (a

motion to dismiss may be brought only by the party

against whom the claim for relief is made, usually the

defendant, whereas a motion for judgment on the pleadings

may be brought by any party).

Sprint Telephony PCS, L.P. v. County of San Diego, 311 F. Supp. 2d

898, 902-03 (S.D. Cal. 2004).

5

accepting the allegations of the non-moving party as true, no

material issue of fact remains to be resolved. See Fed. R. Civ.

P. 12(c); Hal Roach Studios, Inc. v. Richard Feiner & Co., Inc.,

896 F.2d 1542, 1550 (9th Cir. 1990). Under such circumstances,

the moving party can obtain judgment as a matter of law. Hal

Roach Studios, 896 F.2d at 1550. “Generally, district courts

have been unwilling to grant a Rule 12(c) dismissal ‘unless the

movant clearly establishes that no material issue of fact remains

to be resolved and that he is entitled to judgment as a matter of

law.’” Doleman v. Meiji Mut. Life Ins. Co., 727 F.2d 1480, 1482

(9th Cir. 1984) (quoting 5A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal

Practice and Procedure: Civil, § 1368 at 690 (1969)). 

On a motion for judgment on the pleadings, the factual

allegations of the non-moving party are taken as true. Doleman,

727 F.2d at 1482 (citing Austad v. United States, 386 F.2d 147,

149 (9th Cir. 1967)). A Rule 12(c) motion is therefore

essentially equivalent to a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss and

consequently, a district court may “dispos[e] of the motion by

dismissal rather than judgment.”1 Sprint Telephony PCS, L.P. v.

County of San Diego, 311 F. Supp. 2d 898, 902-03 (S.D. Cal.

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 5 of 16
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

6

2004). “[D]ismissal can be based on either the lack of a

cognizable legal theory or the absence of sufficient facts

alleged under a cognizable legal theory.” Sprint Telephony, 311

F. Supp. 2d at 902-03; see also Balistreri v. Pacifica Police

Dep’t, 901 F.2d 696, 699 (9th Cir. 1988). The court will

therefore evaluate defendants’ motions together. 

In general a court may not consider items outside the

pleadings upon deciding a motion to dismiss or motion for

judgment on the pleadings, but may consider items of which it can

take judicial notice. Heliotrope Gen., Inc. v. Ford Motor Co.,

189 F.3d 971, 981 n.18 (9th Cir. 1999) (internal citations

omitted); Barron v. Reich, 13 F.3d 1370, 1377 (9th Cir. 1994). A

court may take judicial notice of facts “not subject to

reasonable dispute” because they are either “(1) generally known

within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court or (2)

capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources

whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.” Fed. R. Evid.

201. County of Nevada has submitted a Request for Judicial

Notice (“RJN”) (Docket No. 15) that contains a copy of the U.S.

Copyright Office’s web page showing that AtPac registered its

CRiis software for copyright on January 26, 2010. (RJN Ex. A.) 

The court will take judicial notice of this exhibit because the

record is generated by an official government website such that

its accuracy is not reasonably in dispute. See, e.g., Edejer v.

DHI Mortg. Co., No. 09-1302, 2009 WL 1684714, at *4 (N.D. Cal.

June 12, 2009); Piazza v. EMPI, Inc., No. 07-954, 2009 WL 590494,

at *4 (E.D. Cal. Feb. 29, 2008); see also Denius v. Dunlap, 330

F.3d 919, 926-27 (7th Cir. 2003) (taking judicial notice of

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 6 of 16
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

7

information on official government website). 

A. Motions to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Fourth Cause of Action

for Violation of the CFAA

As a preliminary matter the court notes that the

motions are substantively identical, and will therefore only

refer to and cite County of Nevada’s motion to dismiss when

discussing the motions. 

The CFAA prohibits any person from “intentionally

access[ing] a computer without authorization or exceed[ing]

authorized access, and thereby obtain[] . . . information from

any protected computer . . . .” 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(C). It

also prohibits any person from “knowingly, and with intent to

defraud, access[ing] a protected computer without authorization,

or exceed[ing] authorized access, and by means of such conduct

further[ing] the intended fraud and obtain[ing] anything of value

. . . .” Id. § 1030(a)(4). The CFAA also prohibits any person

from “intentionally access[ing] a protected computer without

authorization, and as a result of such conduct recklessly

caus[ing] damage; or [] intentionally access[ing] a protected

computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct,

caus[ing] damage and loss.” Id. § 1030(a)(5)(B)-(C). The CFAA

does not define “authorization” or “authorized access,” but does

define “[e]xceeds authorized access” as “to access a computer

with authorization and to use such access to obtain or alter

information in the computer that the accesser is not entitled to

so obtain or alter.” Id. § 1030(e)(6); see also LVRC Holdings

LLC v. Brekka, 581 F.3d 1127, 1132-33 (9th Cir. 2009) (discussing

“authorization” under the CFAA). The CFAA is a criminal statute

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 7 of 16
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

8

that also allows “any person who suffers damage or loss” under

the statute to bring a civil action. Id. § 1030(g); see

generally LVRC Holdings, 581 F.3d at 1130-33. 

Plaintiff’s fourth cause of action alleges that

Aptitude, County of Nevada, and Diaz all violated these sections

of the CFAA by accessing “the computer network (including

computers and servers)” on which AtPac’s trade secret and

copyright-protected information reside without authorization or

in excess of any authorization granted to them by AtPac. (FAC ¶

73.) Plaintiff alleges that these computers and servers are

located in County of Nevada’s offices. (Id. ¶ 34.) 

1. County of Nevada and Diaz’s Liability

With respect to County of Nevada and Diaz, plaintiff

fails to allege that they lacked any authority or authorization

to use the computers. See LVRC Holdings, 581 F.3d at 1132-33

(explaining the distinction between the terms “without

authorization” and “exceeds authorized access”). Plaintiff does

not allege that plaintiffs were absolutely prohibited from using

them. To the contrary, it is clear from the License Agreement

that plaintiff granted those defendants the right to use

plaintiff’s software in conjunction with County of Nevada’s

computer system. (Compl. ¶ 12.) Counsel for plaintiff also

conceded at oral argument that County of Nevada was authorized to

use the computer at issue for at least some purposes. For this

reason alone defendant’s motion to dismiss should be granted with

respect to County of Nevada and Diaz for the alleged §

1030(a)(5)(B)-(C) violations, as it only provides for liability

for “intentionally access[ing] a protected computer without

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 8 of 16
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

9

authorization” and does not provide for liability for exceeding

authorized access. 

Plaintiff instead argues in its Opposition that County

of Nevada and Diaz exceeded their authorization to access the

computers by accessing the CRiis software source code in

violation of the License Agreement. (Opp’n at 7, 9.) While the

Complaint excerpts provisions of the alleged License Agreement

that cover disclosures to third parties, copies, notification of

unauthorized use, periodic audits, and reproduction of the

software, it fails to contain any allegation that the License

Agreement prohibited the County of Nevada from accessing,

obtaining, or altering plaintiff’s software or source code. 

Indeed, the complaint fails to allege any facts that would

indicate what constitutes an unauthorized access of the software

by County of Nevada; the complaint merely states there were

limits on how County of Nevada could use it by making copies of

it or disclosing it to third parties. (See Compl. ¶¶ 14-15.) 

Rather, plaintiff’s fourth cause of action makes only the

conclusory allegation that defendants violated the CFAA. (Compl.

¶¶ 73-75.) Such conclusory allegations are “mere labels and

conclusions” that are prohibited by Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 8(a)(2). Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. 

To the extent that plaintiff alleges that County of

Nevada or Diaz are liable under the CFAA for providing Aptitude

access to plaintiff’s software, State Analysis, Inc. v. American

Financial Services Assoc., 621 F. Supp. 2d 309 (E.D. Va. 2009),

is instructive. In State Analysis, the court confronted a

similar factual situation where a licensee defendant provided a

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 9 of 16
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

10

third party with the means to access the plaintiff’s protected

materials. That court noted that the licensee was not guilty of

unauthorized access or access exceeding authorization under the

CFAA, but guilty only of unauthorized use or misappropriation of

its access under the license agreement. 621 F. Supp. 2d at 317

(“[R]ather, the allegation is that [licensee defendant] used the

information in an inappropriate way.”) As the court has

explained above, plaintiff’s Complaint is devoid of any

allegations that County of Nevada or Diaz exceeded their

authorized access or accessed, obtained, or altered prohibited

materials. Accordingly, the court will dismiss plaintiff’s

fourth cause of action as against County of Nevada and Diaz. 

2. Aptitude’s Liability

Courts have differed as to how broadly or narrowly to

construe 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2) and the concepts of

“authorization” and “authorized access.” Several cases exploring

the potential liability of employees or former employees, for

example, have determined that employees may go beyond their

authorized access when they act as agents for others or act

contrary to their employee’s interest. See, e.g., LVRC Holdings,

581 F.3d at 1133 (clarifying that employee’s “authorization” to

use a computer does not cease when employee uses computer in

violation of employer’s limitations, but rather that employee has

merely “exceeded authorized access”); EF Cultural Travel BV v.

Explorica, Inc., 274 F.3d 577 (1st Cir. 2001) (former employee

exceeded authorized access when he passed along information to a

third party in violation of a broad confidentiality agreement);

Shurgard Storage Centers, Inc. v. Safeguard Self Storage, Inc.,

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 10 of 16
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

11

119 F. Supp. 2d 1121 (W.D. Wash. 2000) (plaintiff’s employees

were defendant’s agents when they had accepted job offers with

defendant and used work computers to send trade secrets to

defendant; employees therefore lacked authorization to access

work computers). The Ninth Circuit has clarified that a

plaintiff can bring a cause of action under the CFAA for

unauthorized access to information stored on a third party’s

computer. Theofel v. Farey-Jones, 359 F.3d 1066, 1078 (9th Cir.

2004) (no ownership or control of computer required for CFAA

action alleging harm by unauthorized access). 

Two cases from the United States District Court for the

Eastern District of Virginia address the specific question of

whether third-party defendants can be liable under the CFAA where

their access to plaintiff’s software is made possible by another

party violating its license agreement with the plaintiff. While

of course neither case is binding authority, the court finds

their juxtaposition instructive. In SecureInfo Corp. v. Telos

Corp., 387 F. Supp. 2d 593 (E.D. Va. 2005), SecureInfo granted a

software license to defendant Berman, a consultant for one of

SecureInfo’s competitors, which allowed him narrowly restricted

access to the SecureInfo’s materials. Berman–-who was not sued

under the CFAA--then allowed the other defendants access to

SecureInfo’s materials and his server on which they were located,

in violation of the license agreement. Id. at 608. The court

explained that Berman gave the other defendants “permission and

authorization to use the [] server and view what was contained

therein” and that “[e]ven if Mr. Berman allowed the defendants

access to the [] server and SecureInfo’s materials in violation

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 11 of 16
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

12

of the license agreements, under his grant of authority to the

defendants, they were entitled to obtain the information on the

server.” Id. at 609. 

In contrast, the District Court for the Eastern

District of Virginia four years later in State Analysis rejected

SecureInfo’s seemingly absolute ban on third-party defendant CFAA

liability where one party gives the third-party defendant access

to software in violation of a license agreement with the

plaintiff. The State Analysis court held that defendant and

prior client Kimbell Sherman Ellis (“KSE”) acted “without

authorization” when it accessed plaintiff’s website and obtained

proprietary material with the user names and passwords given to

it by one of plaintiff’s clients. That court found that the

defendant “may not hide behind purported ‘authorization’ granted

to it” by the client that violated the terms of use of its

contract with plaintiff, particularly given that KSE was

plaintiff’s formal client and presumably knew the terms of

plaintiff’s license agreement. Id. at 316. 

Naturally, plaintiff relies on State Analysis and

argues not only that Aptitude cannot hide behind County of

Nevada’s “authorization” because it knew it violated the license

agreement, but that the authorization was void ab initio because

County of Nevada contracted away its right to authorize thirdparty access. In contrast, defendants rely on SecureInfo for the

proposition that Aptitude did not exceed the “unfettered” access

granted it by County of Nevada and Diaz. Plaintiff notes that

SecureInfo distinguished its fact pattern from that in EF

Cultural Travel, stating in dicta that had the plaintiff sued

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 12 of 16
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

13

licensee Berman rather than the third parties, the rule in EF

Cultural Travel “may have applied.” 387 F. Supp. 2d at 609. All

this means, however, is that the licensee may have exceeded his

authorization and been subject to CFAA liability had he been

sued, not that the third party defendants would become liable

solely due to the presence of an additional defendant. 

While the cases described above make clear that certain

“insiders” can exceed their authorized access or even in some

circumstances lose their authorization to access computers and

computer networks, State Analysis does not establish–-and the

court is not willing to so rule--that third parties can

ordinarily be liable under the CFAA for exploiting a licensee’s

violation of its license agreement. Rather, State Analysis is

perhaps best applied in situations where the third-party

defendant uses subterfuge-–like using user names and passwords

that do not belong to it--to gain access to plaintiff’s protected

materials on plaintiff’s own website, computers, or servers. 

This is consistent with the Ninth Circuit’s decision in

Theofel, which, in dicta referencing its prior analysis under the

Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2701 et seq., implied that

defendants who had issued a patently overbroad and illegal

subpoena to Netgate for plaintiff’s e-mails and subsequently

viewed those e-mails on Netgate’s website were not “authorized”

under the CFAA by Netgate to view those e-mails. See 359 F.3d at

1072-74, 1078 (stating that the Stored Communications Act–-and

presumably also the CFAA--“provides no refuge for a defendant who

procures consent by exploiting a known mistake that relates to

the essential nature of his access.”). While Theofel is silent

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 13 of 16
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

14

with respect to the instant issue of whether a licensee can

consent to give access to the licensed information to another,

this court adopts the basic premise that a defendant’s deceitful

conduct can vitiate consent or authorization by a licensee. The

door remains open for third-parties to be liable under the CFAA

for accessing software programs held on a licensee’s computers or

servers where the defendant engages in the kind of fraudulent

conduct that was present in State Analysis. 

This case is more similar to SecureInfo where the

licensee gives the third-party access to its own servers to

access the protected information. Plaintiff does not allege that

Aptitude accessed plaintiff’s computers or servers, or that such

access would require an access code or password that County of

Nevada wrongfully provided Aptitude. Plaintiff instead alleges

that County of Nevada gave Aptitude access to the servers located

in its offices, and sent information by e-mail and via a public

FTP site. (Compl. ¶¶ 28-34.) This does not allege the sort of

subterfuge this court believes is necessary to find a defendant

not party to a license agreement civilly liable under the CFAA

where the licensee grants it authority to access information in

violation of the license agreement. 

B. Motions to Strike Plaintiff’s Prayer for Statutory

Damages

In their respective motions, the defendants each move

to strike plaintiff’s prayer for relief for statutory damages

under the Copyright Act pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 12(f). Section 412 of the Copyright Act prohibits an

award of statutory damages unless a plaintiff has first

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 14 of 16
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

15

registered its work prior to the “commencement of the

infringement.” 17 U.S.C. § 412. “[T]he first act of

infringement in a series of ongoing infringements of the same

kind marks the commencement of one continuing infringement under

§ 412.” Derek Andrew, Inc. v. Poof Apparel Corp., 528 F.3d 696,

701 (9th Cir. 2008) (emphasis in original). According to County

of Nevada’s Request for Judicial Notice, plaintiff registered its

copyright on January 26, 2010 (RJN Ex. A.), a mere eight days

before filing its Complaint in this action. (See Docket No. 1.) 

While the face of plaintiff’s Complaint does not allege

any legally different kind of copyright infringement occurred

between January 26, 2010 and February 3, 2010, it does allege

that County of Nevada and Diaz copied and disclosed plaintiff’s

protected information to Aptitude in January 2009 (Compl. ¶¶ 23-

33), and that Nevada County continues to maintain copies of

plaintiff’s protected information to this day. (Id. ¶¶ 35-37.) 

The discovery process will properly determine if or in what ways

defendants have continued to violate plaintiff’s copyright, and

after discovery defendants can renew their motion or raise the

issue on summary judgment.

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that County of Nevada’s motion

to dismiss plaintiff’s fourth cause of action be, and the same

hereby is, GRANTED.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Aptitude and Diaz’s motion

for judgment on the pleadings on plaintiff’s fourth cause of

action be, and the same hereby is, GRANTED. 

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that defendants’ motions to

strike be, and the same hereby are, DENIED.

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 15 of 16
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

16

Plaintiff is given twenty days from the date of this

Order to file an amended complaint consistent with this Order.

DATED: April 28, 2010

Case 2:10-cv-00294-WBS -CKD Document 21 Filed 04/29/10 Page 16 of 16