Copyright Litigation in the Seventh Circuit: Pilot Study Report and Consultation

Wednesday December 5th 201212:30 pm

© Matthew Sag 2012 All Rights Reserved. Slides available at www.matthewsag.com

Team

Matthew SagAssociate Professor, Loyola University of Chicago School of Law

Robert StrodtmanLoyola University of Chicago, School of Law, Class of 2014

Aaron M. Arce StarkLoyola University of Chicago, School of Law, Class of 2013

District Court Copyright Cases in 7th Cir 2011

2002-2012

Each case has several pages

Most cases don’t make it to Judgment

Total Filings = 1780

About 160 in 2011

A single docket

Our Approach

Use a combination of human and machine reading to turn hundreds of cases and thousands of dockets into data for high level analysis.

Your Role

• Does what we have done so far make sense?• As we expand to a multi-year study, what else

would you like to see?

An Empirical Study of Copyright Litigation

• Long-term Scope– All docketed copyright cases in the 7th Circuit (2000 – 2013)– All reported orders and opinions

• Current Scope– All reported copyright opinions calendar year 2011 (n=56) and their

associated docket information (n=43).

• Methods– combination of automated, semi-automated and human coding.

• Sources– Case reports on Lexis– Docket extracted from PACER

Filing to Termination

Filing to Termination (2002-2011)

Filing by District

The 2011 Data

2011: Duration of Reported Cases

Digging into the Dockets

Distribution by Judge

Plaintiff Work = Defendant

Work in almost all

cases

Case Types

Denied Granted Mixed TotalSummary judgment (P) 1 2 1 4

J. as a Matter of Law 0 3 1 4

Motion to dismiss 5 8 2 15SuaSponte dismissal 2 2

Default Judgment 0 3 0 3Motion to set aside 1

Preliminary Injunction 3 3 0 6

Discovery Motion (P) 1 3 0 4

Discovery Motion (D) 1 0 0 1

Fees (P) 0 1 0 1Fees (D) 0 1 0 1

The Impact of Pornography

27% of litigated cases copyright cases decided in the 7th Circuit in 2011 were porn related

All Pornography cases were John Doe Suits

QUESTIONS & COMMENTS