Brazilian Court Fines YouTuber for Posting IPTV Tutorials

• A YouTuber in Brazil is facing trouble for posting pirate IPTV tutorials on his channel.
• The Brazilian court has ordered the man to pay 10% of what he’s made on his YouTube account since 2017.
• The case will be appealed, as the creator has merely provided instructions on how to use a tool.

A YouTuber named Bruno Gustavo (YT channel “Jorge Dejorge”) will have to hand over 10% of the revenue that he managed to generate on the video platform to the Brazilian Pay TV Association (ABTA), as this was the order issued by the Court of Justice of São Paulo. The court decided that the YouTuber breached the rights of ABTA members by posting “fraudulent” videos, benefited financially through this activity, and promoted illegal activities to thousands of users on YouTube and also on Facebook. The “Jorge Dejorge” channel currently counts 648k subscribers and has a total of 15.6 million views.

More specifically, the court wants the operator of the channel to pay 10% of whatever he earned through YouTube since February 2017, when the first infringing videos were posted. In addition to this, B. Gustavo will have to pay another $8,700 as compensation to the broadcasters, as well as to cover their legal expenses and attorney fees. And finally, the court has ordered the creator not to post any content that infringes the copyrights of Brazilian TV stations. This decision satisfied ABTA, whose president Oscar Simões stated:

“We hope that large digital media companies will adopt a more responsive posture in relation to the publication of illegal content on their platforms. We are all responsible for preventing and combating illicit acts and crimes practiced on the Internet.”

However, the case will now be taken to the Superior Court of Justice of Brazil, which will review it and give the final ruling. The YouTuber’s legal team feels that the requested percent of the channel’s earnings isn’t adequate for the number of views that the pirate IPTV tutorial videos that raised the case had. Moreover, they do not believe that their client infringed any copyrights, as he hasn’t engaged in piracy himself, and he merely demonstrated how a software tool is used.

This is a case that has been through Brazilian courts since April 2018, when another court in São Paulo ordered Google to remove the videos in question from its search results but didn’t approve any form of compensation to the TV companies. That initial decision was appealed from both the ABTA and the YouTuber, and so the second ruling of the court of appeals vindicated the plaintiffs. Now, the Superior Tribunal de Justiça will have the final word, and it will be a defining decision for the pirate IPTV scene in Brazil.