Opinion ID: 734276
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: calculation of the number of infringements

Text: 46
47 Section 504(c)(1) of the Act provides that statutory damages may be awarded for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally.... Thus, when statutory damages are assessed against one defendant or a group of defendants held to be jointly and severally liable, each work infringed may form the basis of only one award, regardless of the number of separate infringements of that work. See Mason v. Montgomery Data, Inc., 967 F.2d 135, 143-44 (5th Cir.1992). However, where separate infringements for which two or more defendants are not jointly liable are joined in the same action, separate awards of statutory damages would be appropriate. H.R.Rep. No. 94-1476, 94th Cong., 2d Sess., at 162, reprinted in 1976 U.S.Code Cong. and Admin.News 5778; Mason, 967 F.2d at 144. 48 By finding that the 'Who's the Boss?' episodes broadcast by WNFT are separate acts of infringement from the episodes broadcast by WTVX, the district court impliedly found that WNFT and WTVX were not joint tortfeasors with respect to the broadcasting of these episodes. Feltner, relying on RCA/Ariola International, Inc. v. Thomas & Grayston Co., 845 F.2d 773, 778-779 (8th Cir.1988), argues that this finding was erroneous because Columbia had repeatedly alleged in its complaint that all of the defendants acted together and should be treated as one. See ER Tab 1, First Amended Complaint, pp 18, 19, 31-114. 49 RCA/Ariola is distinguishable. In that case, the district court had found a group of defendants to be jointly and severally liable. Id. at 778. On appeal, the Eighth Circuit rejected the plaintiff's argument that the district court's finding was erroneous. Because the plaintiff asserted in its summary judgment papers that the defendants were jointly and severally liable, the plaintiff invited any error and ha[d] no grounds to complain. Id. at 779. In contrast to RCA/Ariola, the district court's finding was contrary to the allegations in the complaint and it is the defendant who is challenging the findings. Feltner has not presented sufficient facts to develop a judicial estoppel argument. See Rockwell International v. Hanford Atomic Metal Trades, 851 F.2d 1208, 1210 (9th Cir.1988) (defining purpose of judicial estoppel as preventing the use of inconsistent assertions that would result in an 'affront to judicial dignity' and 'a means of obtaining unfair advantage' ) (citations omitted). Thus, despite the fact that the district court's finding on this issue was both favorable to the plaintiff and contrary to the complaint, Feltner has failed to demonstrate that the finding was erroneous. 7 50
51 As mentioned, § 504(c)(1) of the Act provides that statutory damages may be awarded for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work. Section 504(c)(1) further provides that for purposes of this subsection, all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work. The district court found that each infringed episode of the television series constituted a separate work for purposes of § 504(c)(1). Feltner argues that each series, and not each episode, constitutes a work. 52 The two courts to have addressed whether each episode of a television series constitutes a separate work have both held in the affirmative. Gamma Audio & Video, Inc. v. Ean-Chea, 11 F.3d 1106, 1116-17 (1st Cir.1993); Twin Peaks Prods., Inc. v. Publications Int'l, Ltd., 996 F.2d 1366, 1380-81 (2d Cir.1993). 8 Feltner attempts to distinguish these cases by arguing that the episodes at issue are not separate works because they do not have independent economic value. 53 While Feltner correctly states the proper test to apply in analyzing whether each episode is a separate work, see Gamma Audio, 11 F.3d at 1117 (focusing on whether each television episode has an independent economic value and is, in itself, viable); Walt Disney Co. v. Powell, 897 F.2d 565, 569 (D.C.Cir.1990) (stating that separate copyrights are not distinct unless they can 'live their own copyright life' ) (quoting Robert Stigwood Group Ltd. v. O'Reilly, 530 F.2d 1096, 1105 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 848, 97 S.Ct. 135, 50 L.Ed.2d 121 (1976)), the facts upon which Feltner bases his argument--that the episodes are licensed as a series--were addressed and rejected in Gamma Audio. 54 In Gamma Audio, the district court found that the episodes were a single work because the copyright holder sold only complete sets of the series to video stores. 11 F.3d at 1117. The First Circuit found this unpersuasive. Instead, the court found significant the fact that (1) viewers who rent the tapes from their local video stores may rent as few or as many tapes as they want, may view one, two, or twenty episodes in a single setting, and may never watch or rent all of the episodes; and (2) each episode in the ... series was separately produced. Id. 55 In this case, the different episodes were broadcast over the course of weeks, months, and years. From this fact, it was reasonable for the district court to conclude that, as in Gamma Audio, viewers may watch as few or as many episodes as they want, and may never watch all of the episodes. Additionally, it was clear from the record that the episodes could be repeated and broadcast in different orders. Nor does Feltner contest that the episodes were separately written, produced, and registered. Thus, this case comes squarely within the holdings of Gamma Audio and Twin Peaks. 56 Feltner also contends that each series was an anthology, a type of compilation under § 504(c). See § 101 (defining compilation as including collective works); id. (defining collective work as a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology, or encyclopedia, in which a number of contributions, constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole). Feltner argues that the question of whether the episodes amounted to a collective whole was a factual one. Thus, argues Feltner, the district court's refusal to allow Feltner to produce evidence on the issue, which would have consisted of a license agreement and expert testimony that programs of this nature are considered to be anthologies, was error. 57 Even were Feltner allowed to prove that the programs were considered to be anthologies, he would still have to show that they consisted of separate and independent works ... assembled into a collective whole. As mentioned, the evidence was uncontroverted that the episodes were broadcast over the course of weeks, months, or even years, and could be repeated and rearranged at the option of the broadcaster. Because this evidence supports the conclusion that the episodes were not assembled into a collective whole, it was not error for the district court to reject Feltner's contention that each series was a compilation under § 504(c). 58 The district court did not err in calculating the number of infringements.