Moberg and the Inconsistent Treatment of the Internet in Personal and Subject Matter Jurisdiction Analysis

Abstract

This Note addresses whether the District of Delaware correctly decided the jurisdictional issues in Moberg v. 33T LLC. The Moberg court was faced with issues of both personal and subject matter jurisdiction based on Internet activity. The subject matter issue, whether posting copyrighted photographs to a European website could constitute “simultaneous publication” within the United States for copyright registration purposes, is an issue of first impression in the United States. The District of Delaware Court used a destination-based framework for analyzing the personal jurisdiction issue, but an origin-based framework for analyzing the subject matter jurisdiction issue. Despite these inconsistencies, this note argues that the use of differing treatment of the Internet was appropriate. Part I of this note discusses an introduction to jurisdictional and geography-based analysis. Part II provides an introduction to the Internet. Part III examines how jurisdictional frameworks have incorporated the Internet into analysis. Part IV introduces basis copyright law. Part V analyzes the Moberg court’s application of jurisdictional law to the Internet activity in that case. Part VI concludes that the Moberg court correctly applied destination- and origin-based analyses to the Internet activity.