IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT NEWS: Paramount and TelevisaUnivision allegedly streamed professional wrestling without a license, (Jun 6, 2024)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

The lawsuit revolves around lucha libre, the popular Mexican style of wrestling.

Subsidiaries of Paramount and Spanish-language conglomerate TelevisaUnivision failed to pay revenues to the companies behind WWO Destrucción Total, WWO Apocalipsis, WWO Total Domination #1, and dozens of other programs created for the Mexican professional wrestling market, a new federal lawsuit contends. The lawsuit also contends that the mass media giants failed to take down the shows after it terminated its distribution license with their promoter (Bruder Releasing Inc. v. Grupo Televisa, S.A.B., No. 5:24-cv-01133-CBM-AS (C.D. Cal. May 29, 2024)).

The lawsuit was brought by the World Wrestling Organization and Bruder Releasing, Inc. The World Wrestling Organization—Asociación Mundial de Lucha Libre in Spanish—is a California-based company that, according to the complaint, focuses on bringing Mexican lucha libre to markets in Brazil and Latin America. (The organization appears to be a modern reboot of a Mexican wrestling organization by the same name that it had its heyday in the 1980s.) Bruder Releasing is a California company that operates a production and releasing company on behalf of the wrestling organization.

The dispute arises out of several licensing agreements that the wrestling organization entered into with Grupo Televisa, a Mexico-based mass media company. One of the agreements, a 12-month deal negotiated in 2019, gave Televisa the distribution rights to 30 one-hour shows from the 2019-2020 season. An agreement shortly thereafter, scheduled to run from 2020 to early 2023, gave Televisa the right to additional wrestling programs at its discretion (to be selected from an “availability list” provided quarterly by the wrestling organization). In 2022 Televisa merged with Univision, the Miami-based Spanish-language media conglomerate, to form TelevisaUnivision.

Paramount entered the picture in mid-2020, through the involvement of its subsidiary streaming channel Pluto TV. In June of that year, a Televisa executive asked the wrestling organization, through its California releasing company Bruder, if it could distribute the wrestling shows through the streaming platform. The releasing company readily agreed. (“Go do it … make us some pesos,” an executive at the releasing company wrote).

But things south of the border went south a year later. In late 2021, according to the complaint, Televisa ceased paying royalties under the licensing agreement. In August of 2022, after Pluto TV decided to “pass on renewing” the streaming arrangement, Televisa allegedly terminated its licensing agreement. But despite the termination, the complaint asserts, the original 30 wrestling shows remained available on Pluto TV for an additional 19 months. Televisa and Paramount eventually admitted their error but claimed it was inadvertent—a contention the lawsuit rejects.

The lawsuit brings claims of copyright infringement, breach of contract, and breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing against the media defendants.

The Case is No. 5:24-cv-01133-CBM-AS.

Judge: Marshall, C.

Attorneys: Konrad L. Trope (Trope Law Group, PC) for Bruder Releasing Inc.

Companies: Bruder Releasing Inc.; Grupo Televisa, S.A.B.

News: Copyright CaliforniaNews