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District Court finds that Streaming of Copyrighted Programs from Non-US Servers to Viewers in the US was not “Wholly Extraterritorial,” and therefore was Subject to the US Copyright Act

The World in U.S. Courts: Winter 2016 - Intellectual Property – Copyright
December.02.2016

Spanski Enterprises, Inc., v. Telewizja Polska S.A., US District Court for the District of Columbia, December 2, 2016

As relevant here, plaintiff Spanski Enterprises owned the US copyrights to a series of television programs produced in Poland.  Defendant Telewizja Polska made those episodes available for streaming to viewers in the US, and Spanski sued for copyright infringement.  Following trial, the Court found for Spanski.  In the course of its ruling, the Court concluded that copyright infringement that “originated” outside the US but “completed” in the US was not “wholly extraterritorial,” and therefore was capable of supporting a copyright infringement claim.

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