Random Access Memory ("RAM") Ruled Discoverable
In Columbia Pictures Industries v. Bunnell, 2007 WL 2080419 (C.D.Cal.) an order by the U.S. Magistrate Judge Chooljian directs the defendants in an ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit to collect and produce information stored in RAM of their servers.
This case involves a number of motion picture studios who sued the operators of a web site named "TorrentSpy". The website offers users "dot-torrent" files to download which in turn are used by a "BitTorrent" application running on the user's computer. The BitTorrent application locates and downloads content. The plaintiffs contend that the downloads include copyrighted motion picture content. Because the dot-torrent files were not themselves infringing, and due to the fact that the allegedly infringing content was not hosted by TorrentSpy, the claims were contributory actions of vicarious infringement, contributory infringement and inducement.
The motion picture plaintiffs served discovery requests on the defendants asking for IP addresses of users of the TorrentSpy site who requested dot-torrent files, and records, dates and times of such requests.
TorrentSpy servers were capable of creating a log of the requests made for dot-torrent files, but TorrentSpy had disabled the logging function. This meant dot-torrent requests were being stored only in the servers' RAM and most information in the RAM was overwritten within a few hours. The court found that the temporarily stored information was extremely relevant to the litigation and that the server log information that resided on the servers' RAM constituted "electronically stored information" under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and must be produced.
Additionally, the court ordered IP addresses associated with any dot-torrent request to the website to be produced with masks. The masks were to be done in a manner where the plaintiffs could identify multiple dot-torrent file requests.
This order will give new ammunition to requesting parties when demanding the preservation, collection and production of temporarily stored information.
