Power v. Connectweb Techs.
| Decision Date | 04 January 2023 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action 22-10030-JGD |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
| Parties | MATTHEW POWER, Plaintiff, v. CONNECTWEB TECHNOLOGIES, INC., MICHAEL BEAULIEU, PAUL BEAULIEU, RUBBER STAMP CHAMP, INC., ANCHOR RUBBER STAMP & PRINTING CO., INC., THE J.P. COOKE COMPANY and GOOGLE LLC, Defendants. |
Plaintiff Matthew Power (“Power”), a resident of Massachusetts, has brought this case for copyright infringement against his former employer, Connectweb Technologies, Inc. (“Connectweb”); two of Connectweb's officers, Michael Beaulieu (“Michael”) and Paul Beaulieu (“Paul”); Google LLC (“Google”); and three of Connectweb's out-of-state customers, Rubber Stamp Champ, Inc. (“Rubber Stamp”), Anchor Rubber Stamp & Printing Co., Inc. (“Anchor”) and The J.P. Cooke Company (“J.P. Cooke”). The plaintiff alleges that he is the sole owner, or alternatively, the co-owner, of the copyright to the updated versions of Connectweb's Custom Vantage Web (“CVW”) software because he created a derivative version of CVW while working for Connectweb as an independent contractor, registered his work with the United States Copyright Office, and never assigned his rights in the copyright to Connectweb or anyone else. By his First Amended Complaint, Power is seeking a declaratory judgment regarding his ownership rights in CVW software, including his rights with respect to any derivative works that he created while working as an independent contractor. He is also seeking to hold the defendants liable for copyright infringement, as well as alleged violations of federal and state law.
The matter is before the court on “Defendant The J.P. Cooke Company's Motion to Dismiss For Lack of Personal Jurisdiction” (Docket No. 49).[1]By its motion, J.P. Cooke contends that Power's claims against it must be dismissed pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(2) because the plaintiff has failed to show that its contacts with Massachusetts are sufficient to enable this court to exercise personal jurisdiction over it under either the Commonwealth's long-arm statute or the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution. For all the reasons detailed below, this court finds that Power has failed to meet his “burden of showing that personal jurisdiction is both statutorily authorized and consistent with the constitutional requirements of due process.” Motus, LLC v. CarData Consultants, Inc., 23 F.4th 115, 121 (1st Cir. 2022). Accordingly, J.P. Cooke's motion to dismiss is ALLOWED.
On a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(2), “[t]he burden of proving that personal jurisdiction may be exercised in the forum state lies squarely with the plaintiff.” Kuan Chen v. United States Sports Acad., Inc., 956 F.3d 45, 54 (1st Cir. 2020). “When a district court rules on a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction without holding an evidentiary hearing, as in this case, the ‘prima facie' standard governs its determination.” United States v. Swiss Am. Bank, Ltd., 274 F.3d 610, 618 (1st Cir. 2001). Under this standard, the plaintiff must “demonstrate the existence of every fact required to satisfy both the forum's long-arm statute and the Due Process Clause of the Constitution.” Id. (quotations and citations omitted). “To make such a showing, the plaintiff cannot rely solely on conclusory averments but must ‘adduce evidence of specific facts.'” Chen, 956 F.3d at 54 (quoting Foster-Miller, Inc. v. Babcock & Wilcox Can., 46 F.3d 138, 145 (1st Cir. 1995)). Thus, in order to meet his burden of establishing personal jurisdiction over J.P. Cooke in this forum, Power must “proffer evidence which, taken at face value, suffices to show all facts essential to personal jurisdiction.” Baskin-Robbins Franchising LLC v. Alpenrose Dairy, Inc., 825 F.3d 28, 34 (1st Cir. 2016). The court will “take the facts from the pleadings and whatever supplemental filings (such as affidavits) are contained in the record, giving credence to the plaintiff's version of genuinely contested facts.” Id. It will “then add to the mix facts put forward by the defendants, to the extent that they are uncontradicted.” N. Laminate Sales, Inc. v. Davis, 403 F.3d 14, 24 (1st Cir. 2005) (quoting Daynard v. Ness, Motley, Loadholt, Richardson & Poole, P.A., 290 F.3d 42, 51 (1st Cir. 2002)) (additional quotations and citation omitted).
Applying this standard to the instant case, the facts relevant to J.P. Cooke's motion to dismiss are as follows.[2]
Power is an individual who resides in Swampscott, Massachusetts. (Am. Compl. ¶ 2). He operates his own software business, which is organized as a sole proprietorship under his own name. (Id. ¶ 23). Power alleges that he “has many common-law copyrights to the various software programs, created mostly between years 2005 and 2020.” (Id.). He further alleges that he is “a prolific creative genius with copyrighted works in the form of books - the first published at age 11 - artwork, lyrics, music, films, software, poems[,]” and that he has registered copyrights for his works since he was 15 years old. (Id.).
During the time period from April 2014 to October 2015, Power worked as an employee for defendant Connectweb, apparently as a software developer. (See id. ¶¶ 23-24). Connectweb is the creator of CVW, a software program that is used to support the rubber stamp industry. . Since at least 2009, Connectweb has used CVW to host its customers' websites. . At the time of Power's employment, Connectweb was a Massachusetts corporation with a principal place of business in Peabody, Massachusetts. . However, in 2018, Connectweb moved its office to South Carolina. (Id. ¶ 36). It is now a South Carolina corporation with a principal place of business in Columbia, South Carolina. (Id. ¶ 4).
Defendant J.P. Cooke is a Delaware corporation, which has a principal place of business in Omaha, Nebraska, where it produces and sells rubber stamps. (Id. ¶ 9; Def. Mem. at 1).[3]It is undisputed that J.P. Cooke entered into a contractual arrangement with Connectweb pursuant to which Connectweb agreed to host J.P. Cooke's website and facilitate the sale of its rubber stamps using CVW software. (Def. Mem. at 3). Power alleges that he has been able to uncover data from J.P. Cooke's CVW powered website, which revealed personal identifying information from 4,000 customer transactions. (See Am. Compl. ¶¶ 49-54, 66). However, he has not presented evidence, or alleged any facts, linking sales made through the use of CVW to Massachusetts. Thus, while Power claims that J.P. Cooke “actively advertises products specifically targeting Massachusetts customers,” and sells Massachusetts notary seals and stamps “that may only be used by Massachusetts notaries,” he had not identified any specific instances in which J.P. Cooke interacted with or sold any of its products to a Massachusetts customer. (See id. ¶ 19).
Power claims that in October 2015, Connectweb laid him off from his job at the company after it ran out of funds to pay its employees. (Id. ¶ 24). He further alleges that in or about early 2016, he and Michael “tacitly agreed” that Power would create a new, modern version of CVW. (Id. ¶ 26). According to Power, the arrangement called for him to develop the new software at his own expense, while working at home on his own schedule using his own tools. (Id.). Additionally, Power and Michael allegedly agreed that Connectweb would purchase the end product at a later time if it was completed to Connectweb's satisfaction. (Id.). Power maintains that he started the project, but never completed it due to the fact that “Michael would urgently call him to modify the current version of CVW instead.” (Id.).
Subsequently, in March 2016, Power allegedly entered into a contract with Connectweb pursuant to which Connectweb authorized Power to create derivative works of CVW by adding additional code to the pre-existing version of the software.[4] (Id. ¶¶ 27-29). Power claims that he completed the first derivative work of the CVW software over the course of three days, while working as an independent contractor for Connectweb. (See id. ¶¶ 26-28). He also claims that he obtained copyright protection over his work, as well as over additional derivative works of CVW. Thus, as Power alleges in his Amended Complaint:
[t]he additional software code that Power added to the pre-existing version of CVW qualified for copyrightability having easily passed the low bar of being Power's original work having a “modicum of creativity” and being expressed by Power into a tangible medium. Copyright protection is granted immediately upon an author expressing an idea into a tangible medium. Since no written assignment of copyright had been signed before the work was created or at any time after the work was created, all copyright in the derivative work of CVW belonged exclusively to Power. In addition, all other works created by Power between April 2016 and at least May 2018 were derivative works based on his own derivative work. He exclusively owns the copyright to each of those works, which includes the exclusive right to create further derivative works. Because Power did not relinquish any copyrights to Connectweb, any work created by any employee of Connectweb is an unauthorized derivative work based on Power's copyrighted work and is infringing.
(Id. ¶ 29).
Power asserts that within four weeks after he completed the new software code, Connectweb...
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