Limitations On Injunctive Relief Under Copyright Law

Injunction is a kind of legal liability under copyright law which infringer may bear when infringement of copyright happened. Due to the quasi-property attribute, judicial decisions may tend to grant injunctions absolutely in judicial practice. At the same time, courts restricted the applications of injunctions in some cases for general public good, In order to know the current situation of restrictions on injunctions in the judicial practice of our country, this paper will do empirical research on fifty cases, in which courts didn’t grant injunctions though the infringements had been established. This paper tries to explore the functions of injunction, the possible circumstances in which injunctions should be restricted, and the alternative measures for injunctions when restricted. In the end, this paper find six typical circumstances of limitations on injunctions, classify them into three layers, and present two consideration factors of the third layer:major interest imbalance of copyright owners and infringers, against the public interests. This paper find the different liabilities or alternative measures for the different infringed detail rights of copyright when injunction is restricted, and proposes that an alternative compensation for plaintiff should be taken into consideration when the injunction application he claimed is restricted.