United States Second Circuit

In a copyright infringement suit, brought by producers and owners of copyright programming, against defendant for streaming plaintiffs' copyrighted television programming over the Internet live and without consent, district court's grant of plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction and holding that defendant is not a "cable system" under section 111 of the Copyright Act of 1976, is affirmed where the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding: 1) plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of the case, as a) the statutory text is ambiguous as to whether plaintiff, a service that retransmits television programming over the Internet, is entitled to a compulsory license under section 111, b) the statute's legislative history, development, and purpose indicate that Congress did not intend for section 111 licenses to extend to Internet retransmissions, and c) the Copyright Officer's interpretation of section 111, that Internet retransmission services do not constitute cable systems, aligns with Congress's intent is reasonable; 2) plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm without a preliminary injunction; 3) the balance of hardships weighed in favor of granting a preliminary injunction; and 4) a preliminary injunction would not disserve the public interest.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/27/2012
• Published 08/27/2012

Judges

• Chin

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel