Sentence of 26 million dollars against a pirate IPTV
DISH Networkthe largest pay TV provider in the United States, filed a lawsuit in August 2021 against a pirate IPTV provider called My Indian TV who, despite the lawsuit, continued to operate until April 2022.
My Indian TV was a service with a monthly subscription of 15 dollars that gave access to thousands of IPTV channels in HD quality via browsers, iOS and Android apps, and a Kodi add-on. It was focused on broadcasting channels originating in India and Pakistan to customers in the United States, violating the exclusive licenses that DISH holds for the entire country.
More than a year after the legal actions began, a New York court has ruled in favor of DISH, imposing a economic sanction of 26.5 million dollars (26.8 million euros) to the two managers of My Indian TV: “they are directly and secondarily responsible for infringing the exclusive rights of DISH to distribute and run the licensed channels and included copyrighted programs.”
The Court found that the defendants captured the programs and converted them to “Internet-friendly” formats, broadcast them to subscribers in the United States, and unlawfully publicly performed and distributed the copyrighted content.
DISH could be left empty handed
Although the Court found Defendants jointly and severally liable for each infringing act because they “personally directed, authorized, supervised, or participated in, and financially benefited from, the infringing conduct,” DISH could stay without collecting such a juicy fine.
DISH appointed Sanjeev Kumar and Tsvetomir Dobrilov as the alleged operators of My Indian TV and permission was granted to contact both by email. Both were notified by sending a link to a Dropbox folder, as instructed by the Court.
There is no indication that there was a better way to contact the men or that DISH has since obtained their physical addresses, wherever they are in the world. East unknown location raises the question of whether the 26.5 million in damages will ever reach the plaintiff’s coffers.