Intellectual Property
Apr. 19, 2012
Andrew P. Bridges
See more on Andrew P. BridgesFenwick & West LLP San Francisco
Bridges' primary accomplishments during the past year had nothing to do with his sharp advocacy in the courtroom, but instead with successful battles he waged on two fronts against government efforts to squelch websites accused of hosting infringing material.
He represented the operator of a hip-hop music blog, dajaz1.com, whose domain was seized by the government in late 2010 as part of an ongoing effort to crack down on the theft of intellectual property.
In December, the domain was returned after Bridges' persistent letters to the U.S. attorney's office in the Central District of California and a high-level public relations campaign to put pressure on the government.
Bridges' effort dovetailed nicely with his aggressive advocacy against the Stop Online Privacy Act and Protect IP Act. The two companion measures were pushed by the entertainment industry and designed to eliminate piracy by foreign websites but Bridges argued they would create problems for every online site.
The bills, which had strong support in Congress, suddenly collapsed after an aggressive campaign against them by Internet companies. Bridges had been scheduled to testify about his experience in the Dajaz case before U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa's (R-Calif.) oversight subcommittee, but that was canceled when support in Congress for the bills suddenly evaporated.
For much of the year, Bridges' campaign for his client was a lonely one, consisting largely of asking when he would get a chance to argue against the government's seizure in court.
The government never told him and kept getting secret extensions on their deadline to institute forfeiture proceedings that Bridges claims were illegal because the deadline to file a complaint had passed.
"I was a gadfly keeping the heat on the government," Bridges said. "They knew I was armed, ready for battle, and staying after them."
Bridges thinks the outcome of the dajaz1 case has made the government more skittish about seizing the domain names of blog sites.
- CRAIG ANDERSON
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