$26.5m judgment against pirate service
October 6, 2022
By Colin Mann
A federal court in New York has issued a judgment of $26,550,000 (€26.6m) against Sanjeev Kumar and Tsvetomir Dobrilov, operators of the My Indian TV service and the MyIndian.tv and NewMyIndian.tv websites. The judgment is against the operators personally. The case was filed by DISH Network, a member of the International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP).
In addition to the monetary award, the court also issued a broad injunction (1) prohibiting the defendants from streaming certain IBCAP member channels or advertising or selling the My Indian TV service; (2) prohibiting retailers from selling the My Indian TV service; and (3) prohibiting non-party service providers such as hosting companies and CDNs from providing services that support the enjoined activities. The order also requires domain name registries and registrars to transfer certain domain names used by the defendants to market and operate the service.
As a result of the lawsuit, the My Indian TV service has shut down and exited the US market on or about April 2022.
“This case marks yet another victory where IBCAP coordinated a lawsuit with its member companies resulting in the shutdown of a major pirate service in the US,” said Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP. “With broad injunctive tools such as prohibitions against CDNs and hosting providers supporting the pirate service, banning retailers from selling the pirate services and transfers of key domain names used by the pirate operators, we can cripple pirate services to a point where they have no choice but to exit the market. We will continue to deploy this highly effective strategy to benefit our IBCAP members.”