Foreign Broadcaster Infringes U.S. Copyright By Featuring Copyrighted Content On Its Foreign Website

Telewizja Polska, S.A. (“TV Polska”), Poland’s national public television broadcaster, owns and creates content for several Polish-language television channels, including TVP Polonia.  TV Polska entered a licensing agreement with Spanski Enterprises, Inc., giving Spanski exclusive rights in North and South America to perform TVP Polonia’s content, including over the internet. 

TV Polska’s website makes its programming available to the public through a video-on-demand feature.  To protect Spanski’s exclusive rights, TV Polska used geoblocking technology that prevents North and South American Internet users from accessing TVP Polonia content.  In addition, two separate groups of TV Polska employees were responsible for ensuring that each uploaded episode includes the appropriate territorial restrictions.  By default, during the relevant period, each episode was automatically geoblocked from North or South American IP addresses, unless a program editor affirmatively