The Northern District of California has denied OptInRealBig, Scott Richter's "bulk mail" company, a temporary restraining order against SpamCop, which forwards user complaints about spam to ISPs. The 20 page opinion attacks OptIn's legal tactics and legal analysis, a real SpamCop slam dunk.
The most novel point in the opinion is the use of the Communications Decency Act immunity provisions for ISPs. Refering to cases involving AOL and mailing lists, the court rules that SpamCop is acting as a republisher, like an ISP, even with aggressive distribution policies, and is immune under the act.
The court denies trade libel claims for lack of malice and contract claims since SpamCop's actions are not legally wrongful and ISPs alone take action based on SpamCop messages. The court also denied OptIn's sneaky request for the addresses of complainers, demanded for CAN-SPAM compliance, of course. Finally, the court recognizes the harm to OptIn if it loses its bandwidth, but rules that this harm is not attributable to SpamCop. Good call. Hard to blame some SpamCop e-mails in the face of Richter's publicity about all his pending charges.
UPDATE 11:05 AM (JTLG): The order is available here, courtesy of the court's web site.