Professional Documents
Culture Documents
{1} This matter, filed as a class action, is before the Court on cross-
motions for summary judgment filed by Plaintiffs and Defendant StubHub,
Inc. (“StubHub”). At issue is Defendant StubHub’s claim to immunity under
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (the “CDA”) 1 . For the
reasons set forth below, the Court finds that StubHub is not entitled to
immunity under the CDA and is, therefore, subject to Plaintiffs’ claims for
unfair and deceptive trade practices. Summary Judgment as to Plaintiffs’
claims under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75-1.1 is GRANTED.
K&L Gates, LLP by John H. Culver III; Cooley Godward Kronish LLP by
Michael J. Klisch, Joshua M. Siegel, Michael G. Rhodes, Benjamin
Chapman, Whitty Somvichian, and Craig Guthery for Defendant
StubHub, Inc.
1 47 U.S.C. § 230.
1
Tennille, Judge.
I.
THE PARTIES
{2} Plaintiffs, Jeffrey A. and Lisa S. Hill (“the Hills”), are citizens
and residents of Guilford County who purchased four tickets to the Miley
Cyrus as Hannah Montana concert at the Greensboro Coliseum through
StubHub’s online service. The Hills paid more than face value for their
tickets and paid a service fee in excess of $3.00. Their transaction, if
conducted in front of the Greensboro Coliseum, would have violated North
Carolina’s anti-scalping statute.
{3} Defendant StubHub is a California corporation which operates a
“ticket marketplace” on the internet. Stub Hub claims immunity from any
responsibility for the sale to the Hills based on Section 230 of the CDA.
{4} Defendant Jason Holohan (“Holohan”) is a citizen and resident
of Massachusetts who owned the tickets purchased by the Hills through
StubHub.
II.
APPLICABLE STATUTES
{5} The statutes applicable to this case are 47 U.S.C. § 230, N.C.
Gen. Stat. § 14-344, and N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75-1.1. The pertinent language of
Section 230 states:
(c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of
offensive material.
(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker. No provider or user of
an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher
or speaker of any information provided by another information
content provider.
(2) Civil liability. No provider or user of an interactive
computer service shall be held liable on account of--
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict
access to or availability of material that the provider or user
2
considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively
violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not
such material is constitutionally protected; or
(B) any action taken to enable or make available to
information content providers or others the technical means to
restrict access to material described in paragraph (1)
[subparagraph (A)]. . . .
{6} In 2007, when Mrs. Hill purchased tickets for the Miley Cyrus
as Hannah Montana concert on StubHub’s website, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-344
read:
Any person, firm, or corporation shall be allowed to add a
reasonable service fee to the face value of the tickets sold, and
the person, firm, or corporation which sells or resells such
tickets shall not be permitted to recoup funds greater than the
combined face value of the ticket, tax, and the authorized service
3
fee. This service fee may not exceed three dollars ($ 3.00) for
each ticket except that a promoter or operator of the property
where the event is to be held and a ticket sales agency may
agree in writing on a reasonable service fee greater than three
dollars ($ 3.00) for the first sale of tickets by the ticket sales
agent. This service fee may be a pre-established amount per
ticket or a percentage of each ticket. The existence of the service
fee shall be made known to the public by printing or writing the
amount of the fee on the tickets which are printed for the event.
Any person, firm or corporation which sells or offers to sell a
ticket for a price greater than the price permitted by this section
shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-344 (Lexis 2011); 2008 N.C. Sess. 158, ss. 3, 4.
III.
CASE LAW GOVERNING IMMUNITY
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websites to face death by ten thousand duck-bites, fighting off
claims that they promoted or encouraged—or at least tacitly
assented to—the illegality of third parties. Where it is very clear
that the website directly participates in developing the alleged
illegality . . . immunity will be lost. But in cases of enhancement
by implication or development by inference . . . section 230 must
be interpreted to protect websites not merely from ultimate
liability, but from having to fight costly and protracted legal
battles. . . .
5
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.” 2 Id. at 1161. This Court
will not dive as deep, but a close examination of the reasoning in the decision
is helpful. Briefly, Roommates.com, LLC (“Roommate” or “Roommates”) 3
was claiming immunity under Section 230 from claims by the plaintiffs that
it violated the Fair Housing Standards Act by requiring users of its website
to provide information which formed the basis of discrimination prohibited by
the act. Roommate contended that it did not provide the “content” which
formed the basis of the discrimination claim, pointing out that all the
information was entered by users of the website.
{11} Judge Kozinski’s majority opinion began with a history of the
CDA, which is important to note here. The legislation was passed in reaction
to the decision in Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy Servs. Co., 1995 N.Y. Misc.
LEXIS 229, 1995 WL 323710 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. May 24, 1995) (unpublished), in
which the New York courts had held Prodigy, an ISP, liable for content
published on its website because it had made an effort to filter some of the
posts. In effect, the decision placed ISPs in a dilemma of choosing to take
responsibility for all messages posted or doing no monitoring at all and
deleting no messages. The opinion places the history in context thusly: “In
other words, Congress sought to immunize the removal of user-generated
content, not the creation of content.” Roommates.com, 521 F.3d at 1163. The
act is a Good Samaritan protection. The CDA should be liberally construed to
effectuate that public policy. It protects those ISPs which are truly innocent
bystanders in use of the web.
{12} Judge Kozinski next addressed the question of whether the
questions asked by Roommate violated the Fair Housing Standards Act.
Finding that there would have been a violation if asked by a broker or
realtor, the Court held: “[i]f such questions are unlawful when posed face-to-
2 Subsequent decisions have either muddied the waters or made them clearer, depending on
one’s point of view. The depths have not become shallower.
3 The company goes by the singular name Roommate.com, LLC but pluralizes the website’s
URL—www.roommates.com.
6
face or by telephone, they don’t magically become lawful when asked
electronically online. The Communication Decency Act was not meant to
create a lawless no-man’s-land on the Internet.” Id. at 1164. That analogy is
meaningful here.
{13} Next, the Ninth Circuit looked closely at the conduct of
Roommate. Significantly, it held that a party responsible for putting
information online may be subject to liability, even if the information
originated with a user. It then looked at Roommate’s activities in posting the
questionnaire, soliciting the discriminatory information, and requiring
answers to it. It held that those actions were entirely of Roommate’s own
doing and the CDA did not apply to them. In essence, Roommate was held to
have developed the information. Thus, development of information by an ISP
can be important in assessing a claim to immunity. But the court went
further and found that information gathered by Roommate was filtered in a
discriminatory way and that Roommate’s connection to the discriminatory
filtering was “direct and palpable.” Id. at 1169. The court found Roommate’s
conduct to be in stark contrast to the conduct sought to be protected by the
CDA, holding:
Roommate’s situation stands in stark contrast to Stratton
Oakmont, the case Congress sought to reverse through passage
of Section 230. There, defendant Prodigy was held liable for a
user’s unsolicited message because it attempted to remove some
problematic content from its website, but didn’t remove enough.
Here, Roommate is not being sued for removing some harmful
messages while failing to remove others; instead, it is being sued
for the predictable consequences of creating a website designed
to solicit and enforce housing preferences that are alleged to be
illegal.
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operators is clear: If you don’t encourage illegal content, or design your
website to require users to input illegal content, you will be immune.” Id. at
1175.
{15} Roommates.com was narrowly construed in the case of Goodard
v. Google, Inc., 640 F. Supp. 2d 1193 (N.D. Cal. 2009). The District Court in
that case held that immunity was not lost under Roommates.com even if the
ISP knew that third parties are using its tools to create illegal content.
Goodard, 640 F. Supp. 2d at 1198. The Court stated:
As a result, a plaintiff may not establish developer liability
merely by alleging that the operator of a website should have
known that the availability of certain tools might facilitate the
posting of improper content. Substantially greater involvement
is required, such as the situation in which the website “elicits
the allegedly illegal content and makes aggressive use of it in
conducting its business.”
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way for it or the buyer to know whether the sales price is above
the price threshold set under §185D. The absence of such
information permits illegal ticket scalping to occur through the
StubHub website and prevents any policing of the website to
prevent such scalping. StubHub’s apparent affirmative choice
not to know the face value of the tickets does not mean that it
did not contribute to illegal scalping; willful blindness is
certainly not a defense to this crime. Finally, StubHub until
2008 affirmatively encouraged LargeSellers in the LargeSeller’s
Handbook to “check the website from time to time for
underpriced tickets or exclusive listings that may not be seen
elsewhere,” and still encourages LargeSellers to buy these
underpriced tickets by waiving for them the fee due from all
other ticket buyers—10 percent of the sales price. A factfinder
reasonably may conclude that the so-called “underpriced” tickets
are tickets priced within the legal limit set by §185D, and that
StubHub, by encouraging LargeSellers to buy these tickets, is
essentially encouraging LargeSellers to resell these tickets at
higher prices, from which StubHub will enjoy a higher
commission. Therefore, this Court finds that there is a genuine
issue of material fact as to whether StubHub is intentionally
inducing or encouraging others to violate §§185A or 185D, or
profiting from such violations while declining to stop or limit
them.
9
§230(f)(3). The Ninth Circuit has interpreted the term
“development” as “referring not merely to augmenting the
content generally, but to materially contributing to its alleged
unlawfulness. In other words, a website helps to develop
unlawful content, and thus falls within the exception to section
230, if it contributes materially to the alleged illegality of the
conduct.” Roommates, 521 F.3d at 1167-68. Here, as discussed
earlier, there is evidence in the record that StubHub materially
contributed to the illegal “ticket scalping” of its sellers. In effect,
the same evidence of knowing participation in illegal “ticket
scalping” that is sufficient, if proven, to establish improper
means is also sufficient to place StubHub outside the immunity
provided by the CDA.
The word develop derives from the Old French desveloper, which
means, in essence, to unwrap. Webster's Third New
10
International Dictionary 618 (2002) (explaining that desveloper
is composed of the word veloper, meaning "to wrap up," and the
negative prefix des). The dictionary definitions for develop
correspondingly revolve around the act of drawing something
out, making it “visible,” “active,”or “usable.” Id. Thus, a
photograph is developed by chemical processes exposing a latent
image. See id. Land is developed by harnessing its untapped
potential for building or for extracting resources. See id.
Likewise, when confidential telephone information was exposed
to public view through Abika.com, that information was
“developed.” See id. (one definition of develop is “to make
actually available or usable (something previously only
potentially available or usable)”).
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ordinarily say that one who builds a highway is “responsible” for
the use of that highway by a fleeing bank robber, even though
the culprit's escape was facilitated by the availability of the
highway.
Id. at 1197.
{19} The Tenth Circuit cited with approval the “material
contribution” test adopted by the Ninth Circuit in Roommates.com. It then
applied that test to the conduct of Accusearch, holding:
That language applies to Accusearch’s role in this case.
By paying its researchers to acquire telephone records, knowing
that the confidentiality of the records was protected by law, it
contributed mightily to the unlawful conduct of its researchers.
Indeed, Accusearch’s responsibility is more pronounced than
that of Roomates.com. Roommates.com may have encouraged
users to post offending content; but the offensive postings were
Accusearch’s raison d’etre and it affirmatively solicited them.
Id. at 1200.
{20} The Tenth Circuit made another series of observations that
demonstrates the language the courts have used in finding immunity for
message boards that provided only neutral tools for posting. It distinguished
its own case of Ben Ezra, Weinstein, & Co., Inc. v. Am. Online, Inc., 206 F.3d
980 (10th Cir. 2000), by pointing out that America Online was not responsible
for erroneous stock quotations on its website because its conduct was neutral
with respect to the errors. It said that its decision would have been different
if America Online had solicited inherently unlawful content. See id. at
12
984−86. It relied on the fact that America Online had done nothing to
encourage what made the content offensive. Id. Other cases have found
immunity where the ISP did not prompt and did not cause the content. See
Universal Commc’n Sys., 478 F.3d at 420; Chic. Lawyers’ Comm. for Civil
Rights Under Law, Inc., v. Craigslist, Inc., 519 F.3d 666, 671−72 (7th Cir.
2008).
IV.
ANALYSIS
{21} Many of the facts at this stage are undisputed. How those facts
affect the analysis of immunity under the CDA is hotly contested. The facts
pertinent to that analysis are set forth below. The questions are whether
StubHub is an information content provider, in whole or in part, and whether
its transactions violated N.C. Gen. Stat. §14-344 as it existed at the time,
irrespective of whether it was a content provider.
{23} There is no dispute about the transaction upon which the claims
of individual Plaintiffs Jeffrey A. Hill and Lisa S. Hill are founded.
{24} StubHub operates a website, which it calls a “ticket
marketplace,” that enables third parties to buy and sell tickets to live
entertainment events, including sporting events. For purposes of this
decision the Court finds that StubHub does not generally own the tickets sold
on its website. 4
{25} To utilize the website, a buyer or seller must register for a user
account. The registration process requires the user to read and agree to
StubHub’s User Agreement by checking the “Agree” box with which all
internet users have become familiar. Among the fine print in the lengthy
user agreement is the following language:
4There may be instances where StubHub is the actual owner, but they are immaterial for
purposes of this decision.
13
You agree not to use this Site for unlawful purposes or in an
unlawful manner. You agree to comply with all applicable local,
state federal and international laws, statutes and regulations
regarding use of the Site and the selling of tickets. . . .
You warrant that you will comply with all applicable local, state,
federal and international laws, statutes and regulations
regarding use of the Site and selling value of the tickets.
StubHub does not monitor, obtain, nor have any knowledge of
the face value of tickets listed on the Site.
5For the concert as a whole, StubHub collected approximately $126,000.00 above the face
value of the tickets and $41,947.25 in fees in excess of the $3.00 fee authorized by the
statute.
14
was paying a premium and could certainly have obtained information about
the face value before making her purchase. Like most purchasers of tickets
to sold-out events, she should have expected that the tickets were not offered
at face value or at least made some inquiry. In any event, she was a willing
purchaser at that price.
{29} For his part, Mr. Holohan testified that he used the fixed price
method on the website, typing in $149.00 in the blank. StubHub did not set
the price for him. Apparently, Mr. Holohan had used StubHub on more than
one occasion, as he testified that he was generally familiar with the pop-up
windows but did not know if he used them on the occasion that he listed his
Hannah Montana tickets. As a Massachusetts resident, he would only have
had access to the Average Price window and not the Historical Sales Tool.
Both are described below. Holohan had no part in setting the buyer’s fee and
shipping charges. StubHub did that.
{30} In order to sell tickets on the website, a seller like Holohan must
first locate the event on the website by selecting one of several links on the
home page and then selecting the location from which the seller will be
shipping the tickets.
{31} StubHub has been proactive before the seller even gets to the
website. StubHub is selective in the events it lists on its website. It focuses
on high-demand events which are generally sold out events. Unlike
Craigslist, EBay, or other sales websites, sellers are limited to those events
selected by StubHub. StubHub screens out low-demand listings. It actively
monitors its inventory for each selected event. Its business model is thus
focused at the outset on sales of tickets to events with a high probability of
garnering premium prices above the face value of the event ticket. It is not in
the business of selling tickets to just any event.
{32} StubHub has also taken other action before the seller or buyer
gets to the website. It actively solicits listings for high-demand events. It
monitors its competition for listings.
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A.
LargeSellers
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charged by StubHub, effectively passing the service fee on to the buyer who is
already paying a 10% buyer’s fee. StubHub makes more on the buyers fee if
the LargeSeller builds the seller service fee into the price. The use of the
mark-up feature is voluntary with each Large Seller. If a Large Seller
reaches its benchmarks so that its fee is reduced, StubHub automatically
adjusts the pricing to reflect the reduced fee.
{36} StubHub affects pricing in other ways through its LargeSellers.
It encourages them to look for and purchase underpriced tickets on the
website. It then encourages them to get the underpriced tickets off the
market by waiving the buy-side fee. The policy thus encourages raising the
price for all tickets.
{37} Setting the right price is critical to StubHub’s business model.
It makes no money if no tickets are sold; therefore, it has an incentive to keep
overpriced inventory off the website. However, the higher the price of the
ticket, the more money it makes. Thus, its success is based on driving pricing
to the “market value.” Given its focus on LargeSellers in the business of
making a profit on re-sales, market value for sold out events is more likely
than not going to exceed face value of the ticket. That is especially true
where LargeSellers are automatically marking up their wholesale prices to
include the seller service fee.
{38} It should be clear that by focusing on LargeSellers, who are in
business to make a profit on re-sales, assisting them in pricing, and
generating a significant portion of its revenue from them, StubHub creates a
pricing process that assures that the market price of a ticket will exceed the
face value with respect to at least 30% to 50% of its sales. However, the
influence of LargeSeller pricing does not end there.
B.
Users other than LargeSellers
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{39} The influence of the LargeSellers’ pricing spills over into the
pricing of tickets sold by other users. Since the LargeSellers are such a large
percentage of StubHub’s business, they influence the market price for tickets.
If LargeSellers are seeking a profit on re-sales of tickets to sold out events,
their pricing would naturally drive the market to prices above face value.
StubHub affirmatively acts to impact pricing to the extent that it seeks to
drive prices to a market level. Often that may mean driving the prices down
from overpriced listings. It wants tickets to sell. If they do not sell, it does
not make any money.
{40} Whichever way the price is moved, StubHub is still impacting
price. There can be little doubt that StubHub seeks to influence prices to
drive them to market value. The target is market value of tickets to sold-out
events; the target is not face value. While StubHub never “sets” the price
entered by a seller, it does seek to drive that price to a market level. To that
extent, it is impacting the price content entered on its website—and doing so
deliberately and to drive its profit. StubHub is in the business to make
money, and there is nothing wrong with that. Its method of driving profit is,
however, a significant factor when determining its claim to immunity under
the CDA.
{41} How does StubHub influence pricing for users other than Large
Sellers?
{42} It studies pricing behavior in order to maximize its ticket sales.
From its studies, it was able to devise pricing tools and services to foster
competitive pricing on its website.
{43} It provided a customer service that instructs season ticket
holders on pricing. StubHub customer service gives “general guidance” on
pricing to individual sellers and to LargeSellers.
C.
18
StubHub uses its website to drive pricing to market value, the very
content it now wishes to disavow influencing
19
{48} All of the popup windows and tools such as the Average Price
window and the Historical Sales Tool are designed to influence the sales
price. 6 They contain pricing influenced by Large Sellers.
{45} StubHub’s business model does not require scalping practices.
It encourages them. It is designed to produce the highest volume of ticket
sales at the prevailing market price for events which are sold out, and thus
likely to generate market prices higher than the face value of the tickets
irrespective of the fees involved on both sides.7 Having engaged in detailed
studies of pricing and pricing habits of its users and competitors, it strains
credulity that StubHub had no information about the relation of market
value to face value. It could not reasonably drive its customers’ prices to
market value without that information. It does not provide information on
the face value of tickets to buyers on its website. Further, it controls its
website to prevent communication between buyers and sellers, thus
facilitating its role as the arbiter of market price.
D.
StubHub’s Fees
6 The Average Price Tool is a program in StubHub’s website that informs sellers that they
entered a price for their tickets that is higher than the average price for tickets sold on the
site for a particular event. (Aff. of Noah Goldberg ¶¶ 26−27.) The website displays a pop-up
window when sellers enter a price that is more than 1% higher than the average price for an
event. (Aff. of Noah Goldberg ¶ 26.) The Historical Sales Tool is a program on StubHub’s
website that displays historical sales information to the seller during the ticket posting
process. (Aff. of Noah Goldberg ¶ 24.) The tool shows the last five transactions that
occurred for the event, the price at which the tickets sold, and the date of the sale.
7 There are rare instances involving disgruntled sports fans who dump their tickets at any
price.
20
system facilitates the mark-up. The existence of the seller’s fee does not
violate N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-344. Its existence contributes to the setting of
prices above face value.
{47} On the other hand, the buyer’s fee charged by StubHub, not the
seller, directly contravenes the statute. If a StubHub employee stood in front
of the Greensboro Coliseum before the Hannah Montana concert and offered
to sell tickets (belonging to someone else) at face value, and if the buyer
would pay a buyer’s fee that exceeded $3.00, that employee would have
violated the statute and been subject to prosecution. That process is precisely
what takes place on StubHub’s website. It is charging the buyer’s fee
directly, collecting and retaining it. That transaction violates the statute if
the fee is more than $3.00.
E.
StubHub’s Involvement in the Sale
{48} StubHub is involved in the process between the buyer and seller
in numerous other ways. It controls payment and delivery, prohibiting
contact between buyer and seller. It profits from its delivery charges. It
serves as a guarantor to both the buyer and seller. It contracts with bands
like the Dave Matthews Band to loan them the money to buy tickets to their
own concerts at face value, which StubHub then resells for them. StubHub
guarantees the face value will be received and pays any premium received to
the band. It advises the band on the market value of the tickets for the tour
and enters the tickets in its system. It occasionally sells tickets on its own,
but those sales are too insubstantial to affect the market price. It operates
kiosks where tickets can be picked up.
{49} These activities standing alone do not make StubHub a content
provider, but they demonstrate that StubHub is in total control of the
transaction. The only thing it does not do is enter the actual price or make
the final price decision for most sellers. It is the party conducting the
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transaction even though it is not setting the price. Again, if a StubHub
employee offered to sell another person’s tickets to the ACC Tournament at
scalper’s prices in front of the coliseum, that employee would have violated
the statute even though they did not set the price for the owner.
V.
CONCLUSION
{50} StubHub did not set the price at which Mrs. Hill purchased the
tickets. It did not enter the price in the blank on its website. It used all the
right disclaimers and warnings in its user agreement and on its website.
However, its actions speak louder than its words. It provided, for its own
profit, a means by which Mr. Holohan and other sellers, in particular
LargeSellers, could scalp tickets in a manner which would have violated
North Carolina law if done in person and not by use of the internet. It
directly participated in developing the pricing on its system. If it did not
know the face value of the tickets sold on its website—an assertion the Court
would find difficult to accept—it was consciously indifferent about and
willfully blind to that information. At the least, StubHub encouraged illegal
content. Phrased differently, the use of its website to scalp tickets in
violation of North Carolina law was a predictable consequence of its business
model.
{51} StubHub encouraged, materially contributed to, and made
aggressive use of the pricing content on its website. It profited from tickets
sold at prices higher than face value. It was consciously indifferent and
willfully blind to the illegal prices being posted, knowing that the predictable
consequences of its pricing model would be the generation of illegal prices. It
is not entitled to immunity. It does not qualify as a Good Samaritan.
{52} For the foregoing reasons the Court concludes that: (1) StubHub
is a content provider and is stripped of any immunity under the CDA, and (2)
its activities, especially its buyer’s fees, were in violation of N.C. Gen. Stat. §
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14-344 at the times complained of in the complaint irrespective of its
immunity. The CDA would provide no immunity for those transactions by its
very terms. Charging prices and fees in excess of those statutorily permitted
is an unfair and deceptive trade practice. The facts set out above clearly
establish that StubHub’s actions were “in and affecting commerce” as
required by N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75-1.1.
{53} There are class action issues remaining to be decided. In the
view of the Court, there is no just reason for delay in entry of judgment on
the individual claims. It is further the trial court’s view, subject to
determination by the Court of Appeals, that the Court’s denial of immunity
affects a substantial right of StubHub and that an immediate review of the
denial of immunity would promote judicial economy and efficiency.
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