M+E Daily
Judge Grants Injunction Against Zediva; ‘DVDs Over the Internet’ Start-Up ‘Intends to Appeal’
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Zediva, the unlicensed streaming video service fighting for its life in a California federal court, has yet to persuade a judge on its interpretation of copyright law.
U.S. District Court Judge John F. Walter granted a preliminary injunction against the service on Monday, handing a victory to the movie studios that sued Zediva’s founder and parent company in April. In his ruling (via the , which welcomed the injunction order), Walter rejected Zediva’s characterization of its service as facilitating electronic “rentals” of DVD discs and players. Rather, Walter wrote, Zediva’s streams constitute unauthorized public performances of movies, which are prohibited by copyright law.
“Customers watching one of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works on their computer through Zediva’s system are not necessarily watching it in a ‘public place,’ but those customers are nonetheless members of ‘the public,’” the judge held. Walter likened Zediva to video-on-demand services in hotel rooms — which the House of Representatives, in its report on the Copyright Act, cited as a specific example of a “public performance.”
Under the court order, the parties must agree to terms of an injunction before Aug. 8. Zediva, in a statement, said it “intends to appeal” the ruling, “and will keep fighting for consumers’ right to watch a DVD they’ve rented, whether that rental is at the corner store or by mail or over the Internet” (via The Hollywood Reporter).
