Columbia Wins TV-Show Copyright Case

Sony Corp.’s Columbia Pictures Television said a Los Angeles jury awarded it $31.7 million in damages from a man whose TV stations aired the company’s shows without permission. A U.S. District Court jury awarded Sony the damages after finding that C. Elvin Feltner Jr. infringed the company’s copyrights. Three stations he controlled aired 440 episodes of “Who’s the Boss,” “Hart to Hart,” “T.J. Hooker” and “Silver Spoons” after Sony canceled the stations’ licenses to air the shows for nonpayment. Columbia said the statutory damages are the largest ever awarded for copyright infringement. It had requested damages of $30.8 million. The company said it sued Feltner in 1991 and the broadcasts didn’t stop until June 1993. A judge awarded Columbia $8.8 million in copyright statutory damages in 1993, though Feltner later won a reversal by the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that he had a constitutional right to have a jury determine the amount of damages. The retrial was held this week. Feltner controlled closely held Krypton Broadcasting Co., which indirectly owned the three stations in Florida and Alabama.