Anti-Piracy

The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) and NAGRA are celebrating a federal court ruling in Texas that ordered a local seller of the Super Arab IPTV service to pay $2.1 million in damages for willful copyright infringement, while also ordering the removal of IBCAP member channels from the pirate service.

The court also issued a broad injunction enjoining dealers and distributors from selling the Super Arab service, ordering hosting providers to disable certain IP addresses used by Super Arab, ordering registries and registrars to disable current and future domains used by Super Arab, and enjoining CDNs and other infrastructure providers used in connection with the Super Arab service.

As part of IBCAP’s investigation, the Texas retailer received multiple notices of copyright infringement but ignored them, resulting in the court’s finding of willful infringement and the award of $2.1 million. The court determined that the retailer’s violation was willful as shown by its “receipt of numerous notices of infringement demanding that [the retailer] … cease distributing, selling, and promoting the Super Arab IPTV service in the United States.”

“This case is yet another example of what happens when a local dealer ignores IBCAP cease and desist notices. An award of more than $2 million against an individual residing in Texas reinforces our repeated message to dealers of pirate services — participating in copyright infringement by selling pirate services is not worth the risk,” said Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP. “In this case, not only was the dealer ordered to pay, but the court also issued a broad injunction that will enable us to shut down the service in the U.S. as well as all dealers of the service. We will enforce this order against dealers of the Super Arab service, non-parties associated with Super Arab, and the transfer of domains critical to the operation of the service.”

The evidence for this case was collected by IBCAP’s anti-piracy lab in coordination with NAGRA. “Our solutions have proven extremely useful in legal actions against pirate services — in this case, Super Arab IPTV. NAGRA is pleased to work with IBCAP and its members in pursuing the shutdown of pirates, and we will leave no stone unturned as we help our industry continue to fight piracy,” said Pascal Métral, VP of anti-piracy services at NAGRA.

The case was filed by IBCAP member DISH Network, and a copy of the order can be found here.