Defendant
1 case as defendant.
Starz Entertainment, LLC is the primary U.S. operating entity of the STARZ premium subscription business. Its ultimate parent, Starz Entertainment Corp. (Nasdaq: STRZ), was created in May 2025 when Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. separated its motion-picture/TV studio business from its media-networks business; the former Lionsgate was renamed Starz Entertainment Corp. and began trading standalone. The corporate parent is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, with U.S. operations in Santa Monica, California (and previously Englewood, Colorado). It is public, with roughly 517 employees reported as of year-end 2025 and annual revenue of about $1.37 billion in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025, falling to roughly $1.28 billion in 2025.
Operations. Starz is a subscription video programmer, not a technology vendor. It sells premium, commercial-free subscription services: the flagship STARZ linear/streaming service, STARZ ENCORE, and MOVIEPLEX, plus a direct-to-consumer STARZ app available on iOS, Android, Amazon Fire, Roku and similar platforms. Services reach consumers both direct-to-consumer and through wholesale distributors (MVPDs such as Comcast, Charter, DIRECTV, DISH; OTT retailers such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Hulu). Its differentiator is original scripted programming — franchises including Power and Outlander — licensed movies under output deals (Lionsgate, Universal) and a library of theatrical titles. It reported roughly 12.7 million OTT subscribers at the end of 2025.
Litigation posture. Starz is an operating company defending, not asserting. The database shows 1 case, 0 as plaintiff, 1 as defendant — a pure defense profile.
Notable case. Helios Streaming, LLC et al. v. Starz Entertainment, LLC et al. (C.D. Cal., Santa Ana Division, filed Nov. 6, 2019, terminated April 2021) named Starz and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. as defendants. Helios Streaming is characterized in industry reporting (IAM/Lexology; Unified Patents) as an NPE affiliated with Korea's Ideahub, Inc., asserting patents originating with Korean state lab ETRI and declared essential to the MPEG-DASH adaptive-streaming standard. The case thus reflects standard-essential-patent assertion against Starz's streaming delivery platform, not a Starz offensive campaign.
Patent infringement suit asserting claim 5 of U.S. Patent No. 8,645,562, later narrowed per a February 18, 2021 letter. The case settled and was dismissed with prejudice on April 21, 2021.