We Don’t Need No Stinking Commercials.

Fox Broadcasting Co. licenses its shows to companies which sell Fox programs online or stream them over the internet. One such distributor is Dish Network, the third largest pay television service provider in the U.S.  Dish retransmits Fox’s broadcasts under a 2002 contract, which provides in part: “Dish shall not ‘distribute’ Fox programs on an ‘interactive, time-delayed, video-on-demand or similar basis.’” Dish offers its customers Primetime Anytime, which permits storage of programs for a number of days, and in May 2012, Dish offered a feature called AutoHop, which permits viewers to skip over commercials. Fox sued Dish for copyright infringement and breach of contract and sought a preliminary injunction. The district court denied a preliminary injunction, finding Fox had not shown it would likely suffer irreparable harm. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, noting Fox had not shown a likelihood of succeeding on the merits on either its copyright or breach of contract causes of action; nor did Fox show irreparable harm. Fox Broadcasting Company, Inc. v. Dish Network, LLC  (Ninth Cir.; July 24, 2013) (Case No. 12-57048).