European Pirate Service IPTVpremium Shut Down by Dutch Anti-Piracy Group

• BREIN took offline the European pirate service IPTVpremium that sold IPTV packages that breached copyright laws.
• The service’s customers lost the money they paid and access to the purchased package.
• Its operator agreed to stop their illegal activity, notifying all clients of the unlawful service’s permanent shutdown.

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has shut down the pirate IPTV service IPTVpremium with help from anti-piracy and cybercrime organization Irdeto. The operator agreed to stop selling and cancel illegal IPTV packages and signed a confidential settlement, informing existing users via WhatsApp about the unlawful activity they were part of.

The European anti-piracy organization identified the anonymous seller with Irdeto's help and convinced the IPTVpremium operator to cease its pirate activities and cancel the running IPTV packages without even asking for court intervention.

IPTVpremium offered illegal packages of €70 annually, providing lots of TV channels, sports, and video-on-demand content from popular streaming services. The operator agreed to pay a settlement fee and 7,500 euros per day if future infringements are observed.

The service was terminated effective immediately, and its users got off with only a notification since set-top boxes with illegal IPTV subscriptions also imply copyright infringement. Needless to say, customers lost both access and the money they paid after the illegal service was taken offline, as no refunds were mentioned.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in 2017 that the sale of devices pre-configured to access content that infringes copyright is illegal, removing pirate streaming box vendors from the theoretical grey area.

Rightsholders can rely on a powerful enforcement tool nowadays based on this massive victory for BREIN and an earlier GeenStijl operator GS Media ruling that says companies cannot knowingly employ hyperlinks to a work illegally published if motivated by profit.