United States of America: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed Tennessee Court's motion to dismiss in lawsuit concerning alleged unauthorised disclosure of video viewing history (Salazar v Paramount Global)

On 3 April 2025, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the Tennessee Court's motion to dismiss in a lawsuit concerning alleged unauthorised disclosure of video viewing history (Salazar v. Paramount Global). The Court of Appeals agreed with the Court for the Middle District of Tennessee that Salazar possessed standing. It then turned to the question of whether his subscription to the newsletter was sufficient to establish subscription to audio visual materials under the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), thereby invalidating the Defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint for "failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted" under Rule 12(b)(6). The Court took a close reading of the VPPA and focused specifically on the matter of whether Salazar met the criteria of "consumer", when defined by the VPPA as a “subscriber of goods or services from a video tape service provider.” Salazar claimed consumer status because he “subscribed to a digital 247Sports plan that provides Video Media content to the digital subscriber’s desktop, tablet, and mobile device.” Salazar's argument hinged on a breakdown of the "consumer" definition into two separate parts, namely, "subscriber of goods or services" and "from a video tape service provider". He claimed that the 247Sports newsletter was a qualifying good or service to which he was subscribed, and that Paramount was also a video tape service provider. The Court cited legal precedent for statutory interpretation indicating statutes must be read in their entirety rather than separated into phrases. Following, the Court concluded that as written, the statute defines "consumers" only as those with a subscription to video cassette tapes or similar audio visual materials. The Sixth Circuit noted that its conclusion contradicted the Second and Seventh Circuits' interpretations in similar cases.