In Arista Records, LLC v. Usenet, Inc., 2009 WL 1873589 (S.D.N.Y. June 30, 2009), District Court Judge Harold Baer granted plaintiffs' motions for terminating sanctions for spoliation of evidence and discovery misconduct.

In this copyright infringement action, defendants have been sanctioned previously for spoliation of evidence the court deemed as "highly incriminating data."  However, defendants learned of even more discovery misconduct and filed a motion for terminating sanctions seeking entry of a default judgment against defendants based on widespread spoliation of evidence and gross misconduct in discovery. The court found that defendants deliberately wiped 7 hard drives, deleted relevant emails and generally engaged in egregious discovery misconduct.  Therefore, the court granted plaintiff's motion for sanctions and plaintiff's motion for summary judgment entering judgment in favor of the plaintiffs' on all causes of action.