NFL Receives $2.6 Million in Copyright Suit

PrimeTime24 violated rights by using rebroadcasting games in Canada

New York, February 15, 2001 -- U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Peck awarded the National Football League $2.6 million in damages in a copyright infringement suit against satellite carrier PrimeTime 24.

The NFL v PrimeTime 24 Joint Venture suit was filed in May 1998 when the NFL accused the satellite carrier of violating copyright of game videos by rebroadcasting the games in Canada. The NFL makes videos of every game and registers those videos with the US Copyright Office. PrimeTime 24 makes secondary transmissions of copied television network programming to owners and renters of satellite dish antennae. On several occasions in 1997, NFL officials wrote to PrimeTime to express their disapproval of the Canadian rebroadcasts. PrimeTime's CEO Sid Amira responded that the "copyright laws of the US have no extraterritorial applicability."

In 1999 the district court ruled that PrimeTime 24 had violated the Copyright Act, and that decision was reaffirmed in April 2000 by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The April 2000 decision permanently barred PrimeTime 24 from retransmitting telecasts of NFL games in Canada.

A trial to determine damages was held in October 2000. According to NFL.com, Judge Peck awarded $2.6 million on February 5, 2001. Judge Peck said that PrimeTime 24's continuance of its rebroadcasts after initial adverse rulings "clearly demonstrated chutzpah, or in more legal parlance, willfulness." NFL Executive Vice President Jeffrey Pash said the NFL is "extremely pleased with Judge Peck's ruling."

But the Southern District Magistrate denied the NFL's application for attorneys' fees and costs, noting that PrimeTime's reliance on a 1995 Ninth Circuit opinion, Allarcom Pay Television, Ltd. v. General Instrument Corp. was not in bad faith. And because the court had already awarded $2.5 million in damages, it exercised its discretion in declining to award attorneys' fees. However, the NFL still recouped $45,792.99 in costs.

Will the different holdings in the Second and Ninth Circuits lead the U.S. Supreme Court to grant certiorari to hear PrimeTime's appeal? It should. In an era where existing copyright law does not appear to be keeping up with new distribution technologies, the Supreme Court justices should look long and hard at the basic issues to clarify the territorial limits of federal copyright protection.

Amy Armond