BIT PARTS

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed a lawsuit brought by a music company over YouTube's initial removal of an artist's music video for auto-inflating user view counts. Darnaa LLC v. Google Inc., 15-03221. Darnaa's complaint alleged breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. But District Judge William Alsup upheld YouTube's limitation-of-liability clause in its service agreement with Darnaa that applies to an “interruption or cessation of transmission.” Darnaa argued Cal. Civ. Code §1668 supported its case. That statute states: “All contracts which have for their object, directly or indirectly, to exempt anyone from responsibility for his own fraud, or willful injury to the person or property of another, or violation of law, whether willful or negligent, are against the policy of the law.” Judge Alsup explained, however: “Darnaa, LLC, has not alleged that Google acted fraudulently, or that it willfully or intentionally injured Darnaa's person or property. Darnaa, LLC's claims simply stem from Google's interruption of service and resetting the view count on the 'Cowgirl' video, which it did pursuant to a term in the agreement (namely, the prohibition of systems that artificially inflate view counts). As pled, [Darnaa's complaint] … does not protect such a claim from the limitation-of-liability clause found in Section 10 of the terms of service agreement.

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