Unexpected ruling: court declares Alibabacoin founders will not be punished for copyright infringement

The new ruling of the District Court from the Southern District of New York declares that the ABBC Foundation is outside the jurisdiction of the court, which is the main reason that the company will not be punished for copyright infringement as requested by Alibaba after it discovered info about Alibabacoin, a cryptocurrency-related business clearly exploiting the brand.

Paul Oetken, judge responsible for the case, told in the papers that Alibaba had not provided any judicial precedent in connection with a website accessible from New York, hosted from this state, but made by a company outside of NY. The judge tells that it would be baseless to find a third-party website hosting company guilty of copyright infringement whilst the content is not made by them.

This does not mean that the ABBC Foundation is not guilty of copyright infringement, the court simply admitted its lack of authority to punish the third-party hosting and reminded about the concept of national jurisdiction. As reports on the topic say, the ABBC Foundation is based in the Cayman Islands, although some other reports previously claimed it was based in Dubai, UAE.

Alibaba has already implied that the ruling of the court is inadequate and vowed to file a new motion in order to punish the ABBC Foundation after all.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons