Mon Cheri Bridals, LLC v. Cloudflare, Inc.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

MON CHERI BRIDALS, LLC, et al., Case No. 19-cv-01356-VC

Plaintiffs, ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFFS' v. MOTION FOR SUMMARY

JUDGMENT AND GRANTING

CLOUDFLARE, INC., et al., DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR

SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Defendants. Re: Dkt. Nos. 124, 133

Mon Cheri Bridals and Maggie Sottero Designs sell wedding dresses online. But their sales numbers and brand reputations are damaged by the proliferation of counterfeit retailers that sell knock-off dresses using the plaintiffs’ copyrighted images. The plaintiffs have gone after the infringers in a range of actions, but to no avail—every time a website is successfully shut down, a new one takes its place. In an effort to more effectively stamp out infringement, the plaintiffs now go after a service common to many of the infringers: Cloudflare. The plaintiffs claim that Cloudflare contributes to the underlying copyright infringement by providing infringers with caching, content delivery, and security services. Because a reasonable jury could not—at least on this record—conclude that Cloudflare materially contributes to the underlying…