PBS, Plaintiff Spar Over Proper Interpretation of SDNY’s VPPA Dismissal
Plaintiff Jazmine Harris opposes the PBS motion for leave to file a notice of supplemental authority documenting the Southern District of New York’s dismissal Feb. 17 of a Video Privacy Protection Act complaint in Martin v. Meredith (see 2302220035), said…
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her opposition Thursday (docket 1:22-cv-02456) in U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia in Atlanta. PBS said Martin alleged the same VPPA claim that plaintiff Harris is asserting against PBS, and the SDNY, in dismissing Martin, adopted the same arguments PBS asserted in its own dismissal motion against Harris. But Martin doesn't support dismissal under the facts alleged in Harris’ complaint, said her opposition. Martin is “inapplicable” because, unlike the complaint in that case, Harris’ complaint is supported by specific allegations that PBS disclosed to Facebook the media content the digital subscribers watched, including the video content name, its URL and, most notably, the viewers’ Facebook ID, said the opposition. The Martin plaintiff, by comparison, alleged only the defendant’s disclosure of the name of the webpage. PBS replied Friday with a rebuttal, urging the court to “disregard” Harris’ opposition to the PBS motion for leave. Harris previously had the opportunity to respond to PBS’ argument, but “nowhere” in her opposition did she contest PBS’ assertion that the screenshots in her own complaint “fail to show that any information is transmitted when a user actually clicks on a video to play the video,” said PBS. The SDNY has now agreed with PBS that sending an URL doesn’t identify a person as having requested or obtained the video on a page since the person may instead have merely reviewed an article on the page or opened the page and done nothing more, it said. Harris “improperly attempts to supplement her pleading with new allegations that information is transmitted when a user clicks certain video-related buttons on the website,” said PBS.