344
Opinion of the Court
copyright, the court [in] its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200. . . ." 17 U. S. C. § 504(c).
The District Court denied Feltner's request for a jury trial on statutory damages, ruling instead that such issues would be determined at a bench trial. After two days of trial, the trial judge held that each episode of each series constituted a separate work and that the airing of the same episode by different stations controlled by Feltner constituted separate violations; accordingly, the trial judge determined that there had been a total of 440 acts of infringement. The trial judge further found that Feltner's infringement was willful and fixed statutory damages at $20,000 per act of infringement. Applying that amount to the number of acts of infringement, the trial judge determined that Columbia was entitled to $8,800,000 in statutory damages, plus costs and attorney's fees.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed in all relevant respects. Columbia Pictures Television v. Krypton Broadcasting of Birmingham, Inc., 106 F. 3d 284 (1997).2 Most importantly for present purposes, the court rejected Feltner's argument that he was entitled to have a jury determine statutory damages. Relying on Sid & Marty Krofft Television Productions, Inc. v. McDonald's Corp., 562 F. 2d 1157 (CA9 1977)—which held that § 25(b) of the Copyright Act of 1909, the statutory predecessor of § 504(c), required the trial judge to assess statutory damages 3—the Court of
2 The Court of Appeals vacated and remanded (for further explanation) the District Court's award of costs and attorney's fees to Columbia. See 106 F. 3d, at 296.
3 Under the 1909 Act, a copyright plaintiff could recover, "in lieu of actual damages and profits, such damages as to the court shall appear to be just, and in assessing such damages the court may, in its discretion, allow the amounts as hereinafter stated, but in the case of a newspaper reproduction of a copyrighted photograph[,] such damages shall not exceed the sum of [$200] nor be less than the sum of [$50], and such damages shall in
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