In a September 10, 2013 ruling, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald granted plaintiff CBS Broadcasting Inc.'s motion for civil contempt against Filmon.com, Inc., and ordered Filmon.com to comply with the permanent consent injunction to which it had previously agreed. Judge Buchwald also ordered Filmon.com to complete a payment of $1,350,000, and awarded the costs of the enforcement motion. The action arose out of CBS's and other broadcasting networks' claims that Filmon.com's retransmission of their broadcast signals to its customers constituted copyright infringement. After CBS filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, and the parties engaged in discovery, the parties reached a settlement that "was conditioned upon this Court's entry of a stipulated consent judgment and permanent injunction prohibiting FilmOn from further infringing plaintiffs' copyrights." The Court entered the consent injunction in July 2012.
By January 2013, CBS and other plaintiffs began to allege various violations of the injunction, including the lack of a promised payment, Filmon.com's principal's continuing disparagement of CBS, and, most significantly, Filmon.com's launch of a new video on demand service that plaintiffs contend violate their copyrights. After the parties were unable to resolve their differences, CBS sought an order of contempt.
