Viral DRM v. Lacomba — Court Awards $223,000 in Default Judgment but Rejects Speculative License Fees and DMCA Maximums

Background

Professional videographers of extreme weather events and Viral DRM LLC sued Desiree Cortes Lacomba and Milenio Diario, SA de CV, a Mexican company, for copyright infringement and for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). They alleged that defendants downloaded plaintiffs’ registered extreme-weather videos from YouTube, removed copyright management information (CMI) such as watermarks, re-uploaded the videos with defendants’ own identifying information and monetized them. Plaintiffs sent takedown notices, and defendants answered with counter-notifications asking YouTube to reinstate the videos.

Defendants did not respond to the complaint, and the clerk entered default. Plaintiffs moved for default judgment seeking $1,225,000 in damages, $15,962.76 in fees and costs, post-judgment interest and an injunction. Service had been a problem: the court first denied alternative service because plaintiffs had not tried Mexico’s Central Authority under the Hague Convention, and after more than a year of unsuccessful attempts it permitted service by email and website posting in March 2026.

The Court’s Holding

The court granted default judgment in part and denied the request for actual damages.

Jurisdiction and liability. The court had personal jurisdiction because defendants’ YouTube counter-notifications consented to jurisdiction in the district where YouTube is located, as 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(3)(D) requires. Taking the complaint’s allegations as true after default, the court found that plaintiffs adequately pleaded copyright infringement, intentional removal of CMI under section 1202(b), and publishing false CMI under section 1202(a). It inferred the required knowledge or intent from the alleged infringement itself, citing Ninth Circuit precedent that the plaintiff must show the defendant knew or had reason to know the removal would facilitate or conceal infringement.

Actual damages denied. One plaintiff’s company sought $50,000 in actual damages for two works based on a claimed $2,500 per 30 days license fee and the use over two years. The court called that fee “purely speculative” because there was no evidence of past licenses at those prices or of the works’ market value, and a bare assertion that the weather footage is scarce and high-end was not enough.

Statutory damages. The court found willfulness adequately alleged, since defendants republished videos after removing or cropping out watermarks and metadata, and willfulness can be inferred from failing to defend. But because plaintiffs did not support the requested $75,000 per work (a license fee multiplied by months of use and a “3x multiplier” for scarcity and quality), it awarded $15,000 per work in its discretion, for $195,000 in total. For the DMCA claims, plaintiffs sought the $25,000 statutory maximum per violation without explanation. The court awarded $4,000 per violation for $28,000 in total, noting that plaintiffs alleged willful conduct but offered no basis for the maximum.

Fees, interest and injunction. The court awarded the requested $13,460 in attorney’s fees and $2,502.76 in costs after finding the rates and hours reasonable under the lodestar method, and awarded post-judgment interest. It granted a permanent injunction under the eBay four-factor test but limited it to the works identified in the complaint, because plaintiffs’ proposed order extended to anything they have copyrighted, which went beyond their pleading.

Key Takeaways

• A default judgment does not guarantee the damages requested; courts require evidence supporting hypothetical license fees and any multiplier.
• Removing watermarks and re-uploading content supports an inference of the knowledge needed for a section 1202(b) claim.
• DMCA statutory damages range from $2,500 to $25,000 per violation, and a plaintiff who asks for the maximum should explain why.
• Injunctions on default must stay within the scope of the pleadings and the works actually at issue.
• DMCA counter-notifications can establish consent to jurisdiction in the platform’s district even for foreign defendants.

Why It Matters

The decision is useful for creators who monetize original footage and who confront large-scale re-uploading on video platforms. It shows that evidence of actual licensing history and a clear explanation of the multiplier or enhancement sought can matter as much as the infringement itself, even when the defendants never appear. It also shows the judgment can still be substantial: $223,000 here, in addition to fees and an injunction.

For platforms and publishers, the ruling reinforces the exposure that comes with stripping attribution from third-party video, including potential liability under section 1202 in addition to ordinary copyright claims.