Advanced Copyright Law on the Internet

Finally, the court ruled, although not in the context of a DMCA safe harbor defense
asserted by StreamCast, that StreamCast’s blocking of users from its network in response to
requests from copyright holders was insufficient to absolve it from liability:

This Court recognizes that StreamCast blocked certain users from its network

when asked to do so by copyright holders. However, its effort was half-hearted at

best. As described above, StreamCast used encryption technology to defeat

Plaintiffs’ monitoring efforts. Moreover, blocking users was not very effective

because a user could simply create a new username to re-enter the network under

a different identity. StreamCast had the capability of automatically blocking these

users on a rolling basis, but expressly decided not to do so.^1968

Based on these factual findings, the court concluded that “evidence of StreamCast’s
objective of promoting infringement is overwhelming” and granted summary judgment of
liability for inducement on the part of StreamCast.^1969

(ii) The Permanent Injunction

In a subsequent opinion, the district court considered the plaintiffs’ proposal for a very
broad permanent injunction against StreamCast.^1970 The court noted that, under the Supreme
Court’s decision in the eBay case,^1971 to be entitled to a permanent injunction on their copyrights,
the plaintiffs were required to satisfy the traditional four part test for injunctive relief of
irreparable harm, inadequate remedies at law, a balance of hardships in their favor, and that the
public interest would not be disserved by an injunction.^1972 The court first turned to whether,
having established infringement, the plaintiffs were entitled to a presumption of irreparable
harm, and concluded that a presumption of irreparable harm no longer inures to a plaintiff after
eBay in a permanent injunction case.^1973 Nevertheless, the court found that irreparable harm had
been established for two reasons. First, Streamcast had and would continue to induce far more
infringement than it could ever possibly redress with damages. Second, absent an injunction, a
substantial number of the plaintiffs’ copyrighted works would continue to be made available for

(^1968) Id. at 992. The court did not elaborate on how StreamCast could have automatically blocked users on a “rolling
basis.”
(^1969) Id. at 992, 999.
(^1970) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 79726 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 16, 2007).
(^1971) eBay, Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., 126 S. Ct. 1837 (2006).
(^1972) Grokster, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS at 30.
(^1973) Id. at 38-40. The court noted significant division among the existing post eBay decisions concerning whether
the traditional presumption of irreparable harm in a preliminary injunction context flowing from a showing of
likelihood of success on the merits also failed to survive eBay. The court noted that, although the law was
muddled and the Ninth Circuit had not yet spoken on the point post eBay, the better view is that the
presumption probably did not survive eBay in a preliminary injunction context. Id. at *43-49.