On March 19, 2026, in Oppenheimer v. DCB & Assocs., LLC, Judge Allison Burroughs of the District of Massachusetts dismissed a Chapter 93A counterclaim while simultaneously allowing an alleged “copyright troll” to proceed to trial with his copyright infringement claims against the defendants.
The plaintiff, a professional photographer, captured and copyrighted an aerial image of downtown Boston, which the defendants allegedly used on social media without permission. After being sued for copyright infringement, the defendants filed a counterclaim, alleging the plaintiff was a “litigation entity” or “copyright troll” that intentionally created near-generic images to bait unwitting users into infringement claims to extract payment for unwarranted damages. The defendants alleged the plaintiff’s trolling or baiting tactics were unfair or deceptive in violation of Chapter 93A or, alternatively, that the lawsuit itself constituted baseless litigation or an abuse of the judicial process. The court rejected both theories.
On the “trolling” theory, the court found that the efforts to categorically characterize “copyright trolling” behavior as unlawful were “somewhat novel” but ultimately conclusory and insufficient to state a claim. The defendants failed to identify any common-law, statutory, or other established basis for concluding that the plaintiff’s alleged conduct was unfair or deceptive. The court further expressed skepticism that “trolling” conduct could provide a basis for liability “given [that the plaintiff’s] right to pursue [copyright infringement claims] is protected by federal copyright law.”
As to the “baseless litigation” theory, the court determined that the plaintiff’s alleged conduct failed to rise to the “groundless” and motivated by a “pernicious purpose collateral to winning the suit” standard for such allegations. The defendants relied almost entirely on the plaintiff’s conduct in other cases, rather than pleading specific facts about the plaintiff’s conduct toward the defendants in the present matter.
Even aggressive or opportunistic enforcement strategies do not, without more, constitute a Chapter 93A violation. Defendants must tie alleged misconduct to a recognized theory of unfairness (or deception) and plead case-specific facts which would entitle them to relief — not point to generalized attacks on a litigant’s broader enforcement practices.
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