SET TV Reseller Ordered to Pay Dish Network $2 Million in Damages
Published on May 23, 2019
- SET TV is already done, having paid more than 90 million USD last year to their plaintiffs.
- One of their resellers, however, has just been judged, and the result is a $2 million compensation.
- The reseller, “A-Box TV” was a US-registered company that openly advertised their illicit services.
The website and service of pirating IPTV reseller “SET TV” have been closed down since last summer, and the legal battle that started with the lawsuit that was submitted by Dish Network in 2018 is considered resolved. SET TV was previously accused of offering pirated IPTV subscription services that were based in the unlawful retransmission of Dish Network satellite signal. As a result, Dish had an easy job proving that SET TV was acting on the basis of copyright infringement as well as against all notions of market competition regulations.
The court announced their verdict on the case in November, awarding Dish and their encryption technology partner NagraStar the astronomical amount of $90.2 million. This was based on the fact that SET TV was serving 180398 subscribers, taking a penalty of $500 for each of them. SET TV was offering a lucrative package of 500 live-broadcasting channels for a cost of $20/month, so for customers that they had for more than two years, the penalty had been already covered. However, this was enough for SET TV to go defunct, and with the compensation having been decided upon, we expected no news on this front.
As it seems though, there was another lawsuit that was pending judgment against a reseller of the SET TV service, Julie Bishop, owner of "A-Box TV". This company was involved in the reselling business and operated through various domains that are now off-line, but were nonetheless listed in the relevant complaint that was submitted by Dish Network again. According to it, A-Box TV was focused on the selling of Android TV Boxes that were pre-configured to be “piracy-ready”, and pre-loaded with the SET TV service software. Every box sold by A-Box TV had an acquisition cost, as well as the subscription service cost of $20 per month.
With this data in her hands, the Florida District Court Judge Mary S. Scriven has decided that A-Box TV should pay $10000 for each of the 200 violations that are listed in the complaint, adding up to a total amount of damage compensation of $2 million ordered for payment to Dish Network and NagraStar. A-Box TV LLC was based in the US, as was SET-TV, both of which were openly advertising their service and promoting their pirate IPTV services. That said, it was just a matter of time before they would find themselves in trouble. The following image shows how A-Box TV was advertising their “watch for free” services on Facebook, without any regards to the law, or fear of things going the way they did.
image source: torrentfreak.com
What is your opinion on the magnitude of the damage compensation that was ordered by the Florida district court? Is it too high, too low, or just right? Let us know in the comments down below, or on our socials, on Facebook and Twitter.
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