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10 February 2020CopyrightRory O'Neill

Dish Network wins $9.9m in damages from TV piracy website

US television provider Dish Network has won $9.9 million in damages from the operators of the pirate internet TV service Easybox IPTV.

The award came in a judgment issued by the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas last week.

Dish Network sued Easybox in 2016 after it discovered that 66 of its programmes were being broadcast illegally via the service.

Internet protocol television (IPTV) providers such as Easybox capture streams of live broadcasts and distribute them to their own customers.

According to Dish Network, it sent a total of 112 notices of infringement to Easybox between 2016 and 2019, requesting that the infringing content be removed.

As part of its lawsuit, the company identified two individuals, Hung Tran and Thi Nga Nguyen, suspected of being the operators of Easybox IPTV.

Neither individual has responded to the lawsuit or appeared in court.

In last week’s decision, the Southern Texas court awarded $9.9 million in damages against Tran, Nguyen and Easybox IPTV.

The figure is derived from the maximum $150,000 of statutory damages per infringing work.

The court also issued an injunction barring any third-party internet service providers from providing any service to the two individuals or Easybox “related to their transmitting copyrighted shows”.

Easybox’s domains have also been disabled on the instruction of the court.

Dish Network has been active in cracking down on the theft of its content by IPTV services and other alleged piracy outfits.

In November 2018, the US Department of Justice charged three on suspicion of providing illegal access to Dish Network’s content in Puerto Rico.

Dish Network owns a satellite TV provider, as well as its own IPTV service Sling TV. It currently employs more than 16,000 people.

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