Opinion ID: 6500008
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Discovery of MGM’s infringement

Text: In August 2019, a Starz employee discovered that one of the films covered by the licensing agreements, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, was available to stream on Amazon Prime Video during Starz’s exclusivity period. Starz notified MGM of its discovery, and MGM admitted that this improper license violated Starz’s rights. MGM offered to provide additional periods of exclusivity to remedy this violation. At the time, MGM did not inform Starz of any additional potential exclusivity violations. Starz decided to investigate further, and, by the end of August, discovered that twenty-two additional movies covered by the Library Agreements were available on Amazon Prime Video. MGM acknowledged these violations in September 2019. Starz then sought formal assurances from MGM in October 2019 that the identified titles were not licensed to any other service provider and that MGM licensed no other covered content in violation of the Library Agreements. Instead of those assurances, in November 2019, MGM provided Starz with a list of 136 movies and 108 television series episodes that had been licensed to other service providers (including MGM-owned rival service Epix) in violation of the Library Agreements. Starz continued to conduct its own investigation and subsequently identified nearly 100 additional movies not included on MGM’s November list that were licensed to third parties during time periods they were exclusively licensed to Starz.