Zieske v. 53wuyongquan

Background

Dorina Zieske, whom the opinion describes as a Canada-based, self-taught artist, creates murals and decorative finishes and works with acrylics, watercolors, sculpture, and painting on silk. She sells products through her website and in New York and elsewhere in the United States. She alleged that defendants operated online marketplace stores under specified seller-identification names and advertised, offered for sale, or sold goods that used unauthorized copies or adaptations of her registered copyrighted works.

Zieske stated that she had not assigned or licensed the works to defendants. She or someone working under her supervision accessed the online stores, captured webpages and product images, and determined that the products were unauthorized versions of her work. She filed the complaint on October 9, 2025, asserting willful copyright infringement and piracy. She filed the application for a temporary restraining order and an order restraining transfer of assets on October 22, 2025.

Legal standard

For a temporary restraining order, the court applied four factors: a substantial likelihood of success on the merits, likely irreparable injury without relief, a balance of harms favoring the applicant, and consistency with the public interest. For an order issued without notice, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65 also requires specific facts showing that immediate and irreparable harm will occur before the opposing party can be heard, along with a written certification of the efforts to provide notice and the reasons notice should not be required.

The opinion explained that an ex parte temporary restraining order should preserve the existing situation and prevent irreparable harm only as long as needed to hold a hearing.

Court’s analysis

Based on the declarations and other submissions, the court concluded that Zieske had a strong probability of proving at trial that defendants advertised, promoted, offered for sale, sold, or distributed goods bearing or using unauthorized reproductions or adaptations of her copyrighted works. The court found that infringement would likely cause immediate and irreparable injury.

The court relied on findings that defendants controlled online stores offering allegedly infringing products; that more such products might appear and confuse or disappoint consumers; that Zieske could lose sales of genuine products; and that defendants could quickly change store registration information, content, payment accounts, seller names, or asset ownership if they received advance notice. The court found that the potential harm to defendants from being prevented from trading in counterfeit or infringing goods was outweighed by potential harm to Zieske’s reputation and goodwill. It also found that the public interest favored protecting Zieske’s intellectual-property interests and consumers.

The court further stated that, given the likelihood that defendants had violated copyright laws, Zieske had good reason to believe defendants might hide or transfer assets outside the court’s jurisdiction unless those assets were restrained.

Order

The court granted Zieske’s motion and entered a temporary restraining order. Until further order, defendants and persons acting with notice of the order were restrained from manufacturing, importing, advertising, promoting, offering to sell, selling, distributing, or transferring products bearing or using Zieske’s copyrights or substantially similar works, except for products actually made or distributed by Zieske.

The order also barred concealment, destruction, sale, transfer, or disposal of allegedly infringing products, related evidence, or covered assets and financial accounts. It barred copying, displaying, distributing, or creating adaptations of Zieske’s copyrighted works. Defendants had to discontinue use of the works in specified online listings, webpages, advertising links, search-engine databases or caches, and other uses directing computer searches to their online stores. The restriction on online stores was limited to listings using Zieske’s copyrights or substantially similar works and did not apply to defendants’ entire stores.

Defendants could not transfer ownership of the specified seller-identification accounts during the case or until further order. They had to preserve relevant computer files and attempt to retrieve files deleted before the order. After receiving notice, financial institutions, payment processors, banks, escrow services, money transmitters, and marketplace platforms were directed to identify related accounts, restrain covered funds, divert those funds to a court holding account, and provide information about the funds, transactions, sales, and defendants’ identities and contact information. The order prohibited transfers of restrained funds without the court’s authorization, while allowing an affected defendant or account holder to petition to modify the asset restraint.

The order was to remain in effect for 14 days from its date, or for any later date set by the court or agreed to by the parties. Zieske had to post a $5,000 bond by October 27, 2025. The court scheduled an in-person hearing at which defendants or other affected persons could challenge the order and at which the court would hear argument on Zieske’s requested preliminary injunction. The order also set deadlines for notice, defendants’ opposition, and Zieske’s reply.