Japanese Adult Film Co. Suit Against Website Revived on Appeal

A Hong Kong video-hosting site wrongly escaped a Japan-based adult entertainment company’s copyright suit on jurisdictional grounds, the Ninth Circuit said Wednesday.

The operators of ThisAV.com, which allegedly hosted numerous copyright-protected works owned by Will Co. Ltd., “purposefully directed” activity toward viewers in the US, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said. That reversed a lower court’s finding that Will Co. failed to prove the content was expressly aimed at the US and that ThisAV.com caused sufficient harm.

The appeals court’s published opinion noted that the site—despite primarily having Japanese text—had pages in English focused on compliance ...