A recent Reuters story by Barbara Grzincic, “Insurer Off the Hook for Legal Tab in Dish’s Copyright Battles,” reports that Dish Network Corp is stuck with the legal bills it ran up defending its Hopper and commercial-skipping “AutoHop” features in a four-year copyright battle with networks ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, a federal appeals court held in a win for Ace American Insurance Co.  The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Ace had no duty to defend Dish in the litigation because its policy clearly excluded coverage for copyright violations “committed by an insured whose business is ... broadcasting,” and under the “plain and ordinary meaning” of the term, broadcasting “is precisely the nature of Dish’s business.”

Dish’s legal team at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe argued that regulatory and industry sources, including the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Communications Act, do not consider it a “broadcaster” because users must buy a subscription and use special equipment to access its content.  However, “[i]f the parties had intended ‘broadcasting’ to take on a definition assigned by the FCC or the FCA, they could have easily pointed to those sources,” Circuit Judge Denny Chin wrote, joined by Circuit Judges John Walker Jr and Pierre Leval.

Adam Stein of Cozen O'Connor, who represented Ace along with Johnathan Hacker and others at O'Melveny & Myers, praised the court for its “straightforward” opinion.  The last of the suits settled in 2016.  Although none of the settlements required Dish to pay any money, the company then sued Ace in federal court in Manhattan to recover its legal fees.  The lower court ruled for Ace in 2019, adopting the reasoning of the 10th Circuit – the only other appeals court to have considered the question. Dish said the 10th Circuit had gotten it wrong.