DISH Network and its subsidiary Sling won another hard-hitting copyright lawsuit against illegal IPTV streaming services, netting nearly half a billion in damages.
This time, DISH took out SportsBay.org, SportsBay.tv, Live-NBA.stream, and Freefeds.com, all unlicensed sports streaming platforms operating under the collective name SportsBay run by Juan Barcan and Juan Nahuel Pereyra.
By circumventing Sling’s streaming protections, the platforms illegally showed NBA matches, NFL games, cricket, motorsports, and the Olympics. SportsBay also trafficked technology and services to access illegal streams through its websites.
The services were found liable for nearly 2.5 million Digital Millennium Copyright Act violations during a six-month span, according to Torrent Freak. The DMCA protects online service providers from copyright violations and requires providers to eliminate illegally sourced content.
DISH has been focusing a lot of attention on illegal IPTV platforms in recent years. This victory is another major win for the company as it relentlessly takes legal action against offenders causing a serious problem globally across the entertainment industry. It also comes after DISH scored another win against IPTV pirates in Louisville.
As in the case of Louisville Media Box, DISH shows once again it does not take piracy lightly. It filed lawsuits against SportsBay in 2021, and the company did not let up until the services were shut down.
Although the defendants failed to appear in court, DISH won the lawsuit by proving SportsBay illegally acquired Sling content through a digital paper trail. Each time a user viewed Sling programs through SportsBay websites, “a connection was made with Live-NBA.stream to obtain encryption keys to decrypt Sling’s transmission,” according to the complaint.
Texas District Judge Charles Eskridge ruled in favor of DISH’s lawsuit, banning SportsBay and anyone working with them from circumventing programming protections. DISH was awarded $200 for each of the 2,469,250 DMCA violations, a total of $493.9 million in damages.