9th Circuit Upholds VidAngel Preliminary Injunction

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's 2016 preliminary injunction against online streaming service VidAngel (see 1702100010). In an opinion (in Pacer) Thursday, the 9th Circuit dismissed VidAngel's interpretation of the 2005 Family Movie Act, saying its process of decryption and copying before filtering violates intellectual property rights protection. VidAngel's read also "would create a giant loophole" in copyright law by sanctioning infringement if there was some filtering and a copy of the work was legally purchased at some point, it said. The 9th Circuit said VidAngel's buys of DVDs it then ripped and streamed doesn't excuse its infringement and it rejected the company's argument it's authorized to decrypt the technical protection measures to view the discs' content. The court said the Digital Millennium Copyright Act exempts from circumvention liability only those whom a copyright owner authorizes to circumvent an access control measure. Deciding were Judges Carlos Bea, Andrew Hurwitz and Leslie Kobayashi, with Hurwitz penning the opinion. VidAngel said in a statement it's disappointed and "reviewing our strategy for moving forward." It said the 9th Circuit ruling "has absolutely no impact on VidAngel's current service, we remain open for business. On the legal front, we are just getting started. We will fight for a family's right to filter on modern technology all the way." U.S. District Court in Los Angeles earlier this month denied VidAngel's counterclaims against plaintiffs Disney, Lucasfilm, Fox and Warner Bros. (see 1708110038).