Karaoke and Willful Copyright Infringement
Opining on the apparently wild popularity of karaoke, the Sixth Circuit in Zomba Enterprises, Inc. v. Panorama Records, Inc., affirmed the District Court's conclusion that Panorama's infringements of Zomba's copyrights were willful, awarding $806,000 in enhanced statutory damages and awarding attorneys' fees to Zomba. Panorama had been manufacturing and selling karaoke CDs since 1998, apparently without obtaining licenses for any of the songs it had released as part of its karaoke packages. Notably, after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from another music publishing company, Panorama ultimately negotiated license agreements with that company. But despite two cease-and-desist letters from Zomba, Panorama continued selling karaoke CDs containing Zomba's songs and did not obtain any licenses from Zomba. Then, after entering into a consent order with Zomba after Zomba asserted 30 counts of copyright infringement, Panorama apparently breached the consent order within a week of its entry by resuming sales of CDs containing Zomba's songs. Based on these facts, the Sixth Circuit readily concluded that "Panorama exhibited a reckless disregard for Zomba's rights" and that "Panorama's reliance on its fair-use defense was objectively unreasonable."
