Key Cases
Second Circuit: Salazar v. NBA (118 F.4th 533, 2d Cir. 2024)
The court held: YES, the plaintiff is a VPPA "consumer."
But the court went further. It suggested that even someone who ONLY purchased merchandise from the NBA might be a "consumer" if the NBA is a "video tape service provider."
Key language: "The statute defines 'consumer' simply as 'any renter, purchaser, or subscriber of goods or services from a video tape service provider.' There is no requirement that the goods or services be related to audiovisual content."
Seventh Circuit: Gardner v. Me-TV (998 F.3d 1359, 7th Cir. 2021)
The court held: YES, even free users are VPPA "consumers."
The Seventh Circuit interpreted "subscriber" broadly to include anyone who uses a service, whether they pay for it or not.
Impact on Defendants
A company facing Second or Seventh Circuit VPPA litigation has:
- Massive class size (everyone who interacted with the company)
- High damages exposure ($100-$2,500 per person)
- Difficult settlement leverage
Example:
- 100,000 people = $10M-$250M exposure
- Settlement range: $20M-$100M+
The infrastructure answer
The free PieEye compliance scan identifies whether your website has the VPPA vulnerabilities that plaintiffs' attorneys look for — tracking pixels firing on video pages without consent, data flowing to third parties before users have agreed, and policy-to-practice mismatches.
For the complete VPPA compliance framework, see our VPPA compliance guide. For the circuit split and forum shopping implications, see VPPA circuit split and forum shopping. For the Supreme Court case that will resolve this split, see Salazar v. Paramount Global.
Run a free PieEye compliance scan — it takes minutes, requires no code changes to initiate, and tells you exactly what a plaintiffs' attorney's scanning tool would find if it looked at your website today.