CCM Touring LLC v. Moonbug Entertainment LTD

Background

Moonbug acquired the intellectual-property rights to the children’s animated series CoComelon in 2020. In 2021, Moonbug and CCM entered an agreement giving CCM an exclusive license to present live touring shows based on CoComelon. The agreement reserved certain rights for Moonbug, including non-ticketed costume-character promotional experiences outside CCM’s CoComelon tour.

CCM began the CoComelon Live tour in December 2021 and completed a United States tour of more than 60 cities in December 2022. After a dispute about international touring rights, litigation in England resulted in a declaration that the licensed rights outside the United States, Canada, and Argentina had terminated and reverted to Moonbug. The remaining dispute in this case concerned those three territories.

Moonbug later partnered with Faculty Productions for CoComelon Party Time, which CCM alleged was a ticketed live show that violated its exclusive rights. CCM said the Canadian CoComelon Live tour was canceled after its Canadian touring partner withdrew. CCM filed this lawsuit asserting breach of contract and seeking damages. Moonbug later terminated the agreement, asserting that CCM had breached it by failing to launch another United States CoComelon Live show.

In January 2025, Moonbug told CCM that it planned to proceed with a North American CoComelon tour with Round Room. CCM then sought to prevent Moonbug from licensing or granting third parties the rights to produce, market, promote, or present live ticketed CoComelon shows in the United States, Canada, and Argentina.

Motions and legal standard

CCM filed a motion for a preliminary injunction and later requested a temporary restraining order after Moonbug announced that tickets for the planned CoComelon: Sing-A-Long LIVE tour would go on sale. The court applied the same four-factor standard to both forms of temporary relief: likelihood of success on the merits, likely irreparable harm without an injunction, the balance of hardships, and the public interest.

“Irreparable harm” means an injury that money cannot adequately repair. The court described this factor as especially important because an injunction cannot issue without a finding of irreparable harm.

Court’s analysis

The court found that CCM substantially delayed seeking an injunction. CCM knew about CoComelon Party Time in 2023, sent Moonbug a cease-and-desist letter, filed its initial complaint without requesting injunctive relief, and later amended its complaint to seek equitable relief without moving for a preliminary injunction or expedited review. CCM also waited three weeks after Moonbug explicitly disclosed the planned Sing-A-Long tour before seeking a preliminary injunction. The court found that CCM did not adequately explain the delay, which undermined its claim that the harm was urgent and irreparable.

The court also found that CCM had not shown that money damages would be inadequate. It rejected CCM’s reliance on Ticketmaster ratings for a different show as evidence of reputational harm, finding that CCM had not established that the ratings accurately measured consumer satisfaction, that the other show was comparable to Sing-A-Long, or that the ratings difference was meaningful. The court also found that the available CoComelon tours and shows could provide useful comparisons for calculating damages. It therefore found no irreparable harm.

The balance of hardships favored Moonbug. Moonbug had planned the Sing-A-Long tour, contracted with venues and staff, and begun selling tickets. The court found that stopping the tour would cause Moonbug serious harm. By contrast, CCM had not used Moonbug’s intellectual property since the CoComelon Live tour ended in 2022 and had not attempted to plan a CoComelon tour or event during the year between the Canadian tour’s cancellation and Moonbug’s termination of the agreement.

The court found the public-interest factor neutral. Although enforcing valid contracts can serve the public interest, Moonbug had spent the seven months after its termination letter planning a new tour, entering contracts, hiring staff, and selling tickets.

Because CCM failed to show irreparable harm and did not show that the balance of hardships favored an injunction, the court did not analyze whether CCM was likely to succeed on its contract claims. The court expressly stated that it was not expressing a view on the merits.

Disposition

The court denied CCM’s motion for a temporary restraining order. It also denied CCM’s motion for a preliminary injunction. The clerk was directed to terminate the motions at Docket Items 64 and 80. This order resolved only CCM’s requests for temporary injunctive relief; it did not decide the merits of the underlying contract dispute.