The war on IPTV continues as two men have been sentenced to 36 months in prison and ordered to pay $18 million in damages.
IPTV services often look like legal services but sell access to live TV channels like ESPN and HBO without paying for the rights. This allows them to sell access to these channels for a fraction of what legal services pay.
According to Torrent Freak, the service was shut down after a tip came to Swedish police, who launched a large investigation, including wiretapping and raised. During the raid, police found 47 gold bars and the evidence needed to convince the two owners.
The service reportedly had 12,000 paying customers at the time of sale. The court ruled that their service caused damages worth $18 million to members of the anti-piracy group that includes Warner Bros. Discovery.
This comes as recently Greek police shut down an IPTV service that reportedly costs broadcasters over €100 million. The service reportedly ran for eight years and earned over €25 million in profits.
The IPTV service that has yet to be named was shut down by police, and ten men were arrested, a dozen cars seized, and over €100,000 in cash was seized. This was all done in a seizure of coordinated raids targeting the group that ran the IPTV streaming services.
IPTV services often look like legal services but sell access to live TV channels like ESPN and HBO without paying for the rights. This allows them to sell access to these channels for a fraction of what legal services pay.
“To collect the profits, the defendants chose manual collection, collection through digital banks based abroad, as well as through payments into their own and their family members’ bank accounts. In addition, in order to have full awareness and control of their clientele, the leading members of the criminal organization for each portal used a special subscriber management program (panel), which they installed on a computer or mobile phone.” Police said in a statement.
Increasingly in the United States and around the world, media companies are pressuring governments to crack down on pirated content. This has led to a growing number of criminal prosecutions.