Gardner v. Cafepress, Inc., 2014 WL 794216 (S.D. Cal. Feb. 26, 2014).

In this copyright case, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant infringed on the plaintiff’s copyrights to an image and sought the seizure and/or destruction of all products infringing on the copyright, along with damages, attorney fees, and costs. The defendant filed a motion for summary judgment under the safe harbor set forth in 17 U.S.C. § 512(k), which protects internet service providers from copyright infringement liability under certain circumstances. The plaintiff contended that the defendant interfered with the “standard technical measures” clause of the safe harbor law---used by copyright owners to protect copyrighted works---and thus failed to meet the requirements of safe harbor because metadata regarding the image’s copyright information was deleted when uploaded to the defendant’s website. The court agreed and concluded that the defendant was not entitled to summary judgment based on the safe harbor defense.