Jury Orders Utah Movie-filtering Company VidAngel To Pay $62 Million
Jun 18, 2019, 9:49 AM | Updated: Jun 8, 2022, 5:05 pm
FILE - Employees work at VidAngel's office in Provo on Wednesday, July 20, 2016. A California jury awarded Disney and other Hollywood movie studio plaintiffs $62.4 million on Monday following a trial to assess damages against video filtering service VidAngel. (Photo: Spenser Heaps, Deseret News)
(Photo: Spenser Heaps, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Utah-based movie-filtering company VidAngel has been ordered to pay more than $62 million to Disney and other Hollywood studios.
A California jury decided the damages Monday against the company, which had ripped the movies from DVDs and then streamed them for $1 per view with content likes violence, nudity or strong language filtered out.
VidAngel CEO Neal Harmon says in a statement that the company plans to appeal, and the finding has “not lessened our resolve to save filtering for families one iota.”
They had argued that its business was protected by the Family Movie Act and the First Amendment. U.S. District Court Judge André Birotte Jr. disagreed, and decided in favor of Disney, 20th Century Fox, Lucasfilm, Warner Bros.
VidAngel has already filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
