Dudnikov v. Chalk & Vermilion Fine Arts, Inc.
Plaintiffs are eBay “power sellers.” Through the Internet auction site, they sell a variety of fabrics from their home in Colorado. This case concerns two of plaintiffs’ prints, both of which play on famous images by the artist Erté, Symphony in Black and Ebony on White. While Erté’s images depict elegant women walking aquiline dogs, plaintiffs’ prints portray Betty Boop next to her aptly named canine companion, Pudgy.
Defendants, owners of the rights to the Erté images, saw plaintiffs’ eBay auction page (which disclosed plaintiffs’ Colorado location), and came to the conclusion that plaintiffs’ prints infringed their copyrights. Defendants promptly contacted eBay in California and successfully suspended plaintiffs’ auction, an action that allegedly had adverse consequences for plaintiffs’ business and future dealings with the auction site. By e-mail, defendants also threatened plaintiffs with suit in federal court. Before defendants could carry out that threat, however, plaintiffs initiated this action in federal district court in Colorado seeking a declaratory judgment that their prints do not infringe defendants’ copyrights. Defendants responded with a motion to dismiss, arguing that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over them. The district court concurred and dismissed plaintiffs’ complaint. For reasons we explore below, we reverse.
