Walt Disney Co has recently reported a copyright infringement lawsuit against the Dish Network Corp for displaying its most popular movies like "Toy Story 3" and "Alice in Wonderland" on a ‘free tier’ for all its Dish subscribers. Disk Network Corp. is one of the biggest satellite television operators in the United States.
Image via CrunchBase Previously Disney has undoubtedly released plenty of its hit movies top its cable and satellite viewers, through their long-term agreements with Liberty Media Corp's Starz channel. Starz Channel is the most premium network channel of Liberty Media Corp., Just like HBO is of Time Warner Inc or Showtime is for CBS Corp.
As giant of a media company as Disney, has claimed that it only allows Starz the authorization to release its movies on-air because they are agreed on the condition that Starz will only air them with premium tier with all distributors. Disney has now asserted in the lawsuit against Dish, that bagin airing several of its movies since this February, and has been providing millions of its subscriber’s un-authorized free access to Starz Channel. It has mentioned that this completely violates the terms of their agreement, which is valid till January 2012, and both the parties Disney and Starz are affected of this violation. It has also stated that Disney had already written a formal warning to Dish back in March for cease and desist its entire Starz giveaway, however Dish specifically rejected that warning letter and declined to do so.
Most of the content which makes it on Starz is mostly from either Disney or Sony Corp's Sony Pictures only. Though it is very interesting to notice here, that neither Starz nor Sony are responsible for any kind of involvement with the lawsuit against Dish.
Whereas Dish was not accessible for any kind of remarks on the lawsuit Disney gave its remarks right away. Disney gave the statement that the actions of Dish Network are very cheap and undervalue its movies along with undermining its "windowing" strategy. The lawsuit has been filed at the U.S. District Court Southern District of New York. Case No. 11 CIV 2973.
Dish is a very reputable, and also the second largest U.S. satellite TV provider, scoring larger than 14 million numbers of subscribers. Just this Monday it has finished settling another six-year long patent lawsuit which was with TiVo Inc.
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