Columbia Pictures Television v. Krypton Broadcasting of Birmingham, Inc.

After Krypton's television stations (defendant, owned by C. Elvin Feltner) fell behind on license payments for several TV series, Columbia Pictures Television (plaintiff) tried to terminate the licenses, but the stations kept airing the shows; Columbia sued for copyright infringement, and the district court awarded $8,800,000 in statutory damages, calculating separately for each episode aired and for each of the three stations. Feltner and Krypton appealed, arguing each series (not each episode) should count as a single infringed work, and that the three commonly owned stations should be treated as a single infringer.