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Bit Parts

By Stan Soocher
April 01, 2024

Amazon Didn't Exceed Scope of License to Stream Chinese Drama

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that Amazon didn't exceed the scope of a license to stream the Chinese TV drama General and I on the Warner Bros.' DramaFever channel on Amazon Prime. Wanjuan Media (Tianjin) Co. Ltd. v. Amazon.com Inc., 22-CV-1434. The Chinese company Wanjuan Media had executed a joint-production agreement with Shanghai Croton Culture Media, which later entered into a non-exclusive agreement with DramaFever for General and I to be distributed online "on DramaFever Platforms," including on Amazon Prime. But Warner Bros. shut down the DramaFever channel in 2018. In 2022, Wanjuan Media sued Amazon for copyright infringement, alleging "certain screenshots and other evidence 'suggest that it is possible that Amazon was still streaming' [General and I] in November 2020, and even perhaps 'as late as October 2021.'" District Judge J. Paul Oetken granted summary judgment for Amazon, noting: "There is no hard evidence that Amazon streamed the show after October 2018 or that it discontinued streaming only after Wanjuan's cease-and-desist notice. Screenshots of the 'General and I' product detail page, taken on August 3, 2021, and submitted into the record by Wanjuan, clearly indicate that '[t]his video is currently unavailable.'"

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