Florida Court Fines SET TV $90,000,000 in Piracy Damages to Dish TV
Published on November 13, 2018
- After months of legal battle, the lawsuit against SET TV for piracy has come to an end.
- A Florida court has ordered the IPTV service provider to pay $90 million for damages to Dish TV.
- The complaint against SET TV was filed by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment in April 2018.
Earlier this year, popular IPTV service SET TV went offline without any notice only for reports to surface later about a piracy lawsuit. The service provider was facing legal pressure from Dish TV, Amazon, Netflix and other industry behemoths under the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment. After months of court hearings, a Florida judge has fined the service provider $90 million which needs to be paid to Dish TV.
SET TV has agreed to pay the fine amount and will be settling the case with Dish TV soon. The complaint against SET TV reads “Defendants created a pirate streaming television service they have branded ‘SET TV’ Defendants sell subscriptions and devices for the SET TV pirate streaming service, which includes numerous television channels that were received without authorization from DISH’s satellite service and were subsequently retransmitted without authorization on the SET TV pirate streaming service.”
The IPTV service provider offered more than 500 live channels including on-demand content as well as PPV broadcasts for $20 per month. Customers also had the option to purchase pre-configured IPTV boxes that came with the IPTV's app built-in.
Dish TV has been awarded statutory charges amounting to $90,199,000 under the FCA which was calculated as $500 for each subscriber acquired by SET TV over the years (180,398). In addition to the damages paid towards Dish TV, the company will also receive ownership of all pirate set-top boxes, subscription codes, passwords and apps that are related to the illegal service.
It is likely that an out of court settlement that will be made between SET TV and Dish TV will involve an amount that is much smaller than the fine cited by the court. However, the outcome of the lawsuit will serve as a deterrent against IPTV service providers who offer content illegally in the US.
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