Court Order Blocks Access to Streaming Video Platform

Division V of the Argentine Court of Appeals (the “Court”) repealed a decision rendered by a court of first instance, and granted a precautionary measure requested by Fox, Disney, Paramount, Columbia and other companies acting as complainants against Cuevana, a streaming website.

The Court’s decision ordered that a list of websites identified by the complainants be blocked, and also ordered the blocking of any other websites which have similar characteristics, which are identified with the name “Cuevana”, and are used as a platform to access audiovisual content protected by Intellectual Property Law No. 11,723. 

Cuevana allegedly facilitated access by an indeterminate number of users to protected works without their authors’ consent, through the administration and development of the Cuevena websites. This conduct falsl within the scope of section 72 of Intellectual Property Law No. 11,723, which provides that editing, selling or reproducing by any means or through any instrument a published or unpublished work without the author’s consent is a type of fraud, which is also penalized by section 172 of the Criminal Code.

The Court considered that – regardless of the provisional stage of the proceedings – the precautionary measure was the appropriate procedural remedy to accomplish a cease in the infringing activity and to stop its effects. In order to conclude this, the judges referred to the provisions on precautionary measures contained in sections 23 of the Criminal Code, 79 of Intellectual Property Law No. 11,723, 518 of the Criminal Code of Procedure, and 195, 198 and 199 of the Civil and Commercial Code of Procedure.

In this context, the Court repealed the decision of the lower court and ordered that the Cuevana websites be blocked, after the complainants post an appropriate bond.