TorrentFreak first reported that the companies are going after the IPTV service with a lawsuit filed in California, alleging that Nitro TV is offering subscribers thousands of “live and title-curated television channels” which it does not have rights to.
“The channels available on Nitro TV include many of the world’s most popular television programs and motion pictures such as The Office, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Toy Story 3, Star Trek Beyond, Homecoming and Joker, including works whose copyrights Plaintiffs own or exclusively control,” the complaint reads.
“Plaintiffs and/or their affiliates have invested and continue to invest substantial resources and effort each year to develop, produce, distribute, and publicly perform their Copyrighted Works through legitimate market channels that in aggregate create a content ecosystem that is safe and reliable for consumers.
“Defendants’ unlawful conduct in operating Nitro TV directly and willfully subverts that ecosystem through pursuit of illicit profits from massive and blatant infringement of Plaintiffs’ Copyrighted Works,” it continues.
The lawsuit goes on to mention Facebook groups as a means of promoting the service and mentioning specific resellers who have bragged about the number of customers they’ve sold to, claiming that the owners and others linked to the service promote and encourage Nitro TV as a being a source of unauthorized content.
The group is asking for damages up to $150,000 per infringed work. The suit is going after Nitro TV, along with third parties, including Namecheap and Domain.com, the domain registrars of Tekkhosting.com and NitroIPTV.com.
This is far from the first case of entertainment companies taking ‘pirate’ IPTV services to court. Back in December, we reported that DISH was going after Boom Media, a reseller of several well-known IPTV services. DISH sought damages, as well as the information of those who had subscribed to the services. The owner of Boom Media, John Henderson, responded in an expletive-filled statement and by setting up a GoFundMe to pay for legal fees.
TorrentFreak has provided a PDF of the full complaint against Nitro TV here.
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