Major Studios Secure $50 Million Damages Award and Permanent Injunction Against Omniverse

Munger, Tolles & Olson represented members of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) including Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros., in securing a $50 million damages award and a permanent injunction shutting down Omniverse, a distributor of unauthorized streams of copyrighted movie and television content.

As part of the consent judgment signed by Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on Dec. 3, 2019, the operators of Omniverse agreed to permanently cease all operations, refrain from operating any similar service, and pay $50 million in damages.

ACE sued Omniverse in February 2019 for providing unauthorized streams of copyrighted movies and television shows to numerous downstream services that, in turn, offered the illegal content to their customers. The plaintiffs alleged that Omniverse continued to fuel a growing network of infringing streaming services, marketing itself as an easy source of content, even though the company did not have a license to distribute the copyrighted content.

“This judgment and injunction are a major win for creators, audiences and the legitimate streaming market, which has been undermined by Omniverse and its ‘back office’ piracy infrastructure for years,” said Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at the Motion Picture Association Karen Thorland in a press release issued by ACE.

The studios were represented by lead counsel Rose Leda Ehler, along with Melinda E. LeMoine, Mark R. Yohalem, and Anne K. Conley.