The Making Available Right Gets Transmitted To The U.S.

In what appears to be the first instance of an express recognition of a "making available" right under the U.S. Copyright Act, a D.C. district court in Spanski Enters. v. Telewizja Polska S.A., Civ. Action No. 12-cv-957 (TSC), 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166506 (D.D.C. Dec. 2, 2016) found a foreign defendant liable for copyright infringement for allowing video content stored in Poland to be accessed in the United States. The Plaintiff was a Canadian company that held an exclusive license to some 51 Polish television show episodes. In something of a twist, the Defendant was the producer and original owner of the episodes, but granted exclusive North and South American distribution rights to Plaintiff. Despite granting the license, the Defendant stored the episodes on servers in Poland and allowed users of its website to view the programs via streaming. The court found after a five-day bench trial that the Defendant intentionally disabled geoblocking technology that would have