The fight between Jake Paul and Ben Askren was allegedly streamed online without permission a series of lawsuits were filed but Triller has measured up another failure in a US court. A lawsuit filed against teen YouTuber ‘ItsLilBrandon’ has been thrown out by a judge after Triller failed to follow the court’s orders. Triller has been filing copyright infringement lawsuits against the alleged culprits.
The campaign began with a $100m complaint against multiple “business entities” but a judge dismissed all but one of the parties from the action. They were warned that by joining all of them as cooperating parties, the illegal conduct of one defendant could be wrongly attributed to another independent defendant.
Triller started filing separate actions against each entity. One of those suits targeted YouTuber ‘ItsLilBrandon’, later identified as Brandon T. Williams.
Williams was alleged of the operation
Triller’s complaint alleged that Williams is the operator of the ‘ItsLilBrandon’ YouTube channel, and he publicly displayed the and asked followers to “help out” by donating to mobile payment processing service Cash App. However, without any supporting evidence, the company also went on to claim that Williams owns and operates a number of torrent and streaming websites and accused Williams of utilizing the ‘ItsLilBrandon’ branding as a shell to avoid liability to Triller.
Triller also accused Williams of copyright infringement, vicarious copyright infringement, violations of the Federal Communications Act, conversion, and violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
The case docket reveals that 19-year-old Williams was served with the summons and complaint during the morning of June 7. Triller’s representative couldn’t locate the defendant at the expected address but Williams later accepted service at an address in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. Mike Tyson Drops Khabib Fight Bombshell
United States District Judge Fernando M. Olguin informed Triller on July 6 that its motion should include detailed information, such as the damages and injunctive relief sought, and any claim for attorney’s fees. One of the basic requirements was that any claim for damages must be “supported by detailed, clear, and thorough calculations” that cite the “underlying admissible evidence, such as contracts, spreadsheets, and declarations.”
The Judge had then forewarned that failing to file for a motion for default containing the information detailed in his order could result in the motion being denied. It could even see the case against the defendant being dismissed for failure to prosecute and/or failing to comply with a court order.
Judge Olguin noted that Triller had been ordered to serve a motion for default judgment no later than July 20 and had been warned that failure could result in the action against Brandon Williams and ItsLilBrandon being dismissed. Triller failed to comply with that order.
The case was dismissed
Noting that dismissal is a severe penalty and an extreme remedy, the Judge added that relevant factors have to be weighed before dismissal including the public’s interest in expeditious resolution of litigation, the court’s need to manage its docket, and the risk of prejudice to defendants and respondents.
The case was dismissed without prejudice, and a new complaint can be filed at a later date. However, Judge demands that a detailed damages claim is required (no evidence supporting such a claim has been presented to the court). We will see if Triller is genuinely interested in pursuing this matter any further.
