On August 14, a judge for the US District Court of the Central District of Texas awarded $493,850,000 statutory damages from defendants Juan Barcan and Juan Nahuel Pereyra to DISH Network and Sling TV LLC, for almost 2.5 million violations of (“Defendants”) on Plaintiffs’ claims for violations of §§1201(a)(2) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act from the operation of four piracy sites, live-nba.stream, freefeds.com, sportsbay.org and sportsbay.tv.
The original complaint by DISH and Sling TV was filed in mid-2021, which identified the four sites offering TV channels online with “No Blackouts. No signup.” Many of these channels were licensed to DISH and Sling TV, and the pirates circumvented their DRM platform, enabling the defendants to redistribute Sling programming without authorization from DISH or Sling.
The technical investigation was conducted by NagraStar, with the assistance of third parties. More than 500 pages of exhibits were filed with DISH Network’s Motion for Default Judgment, showing the infringing services that the defendants were offering. The sites were promoted over Instragram and Twitter.
Tucows Inc was the registrar and privacy proteciton service for the domains. Cloudflare was their Internet service provider. Namcheap Inc. was a previous domain registrar, WhoisGuard Inc was a previous privacy protection service. Their IP addresses were owned by DigitalOcean LLC and Namecheap Inc.
A modified version of the DISH/Sling TV complaint filed in 2022 asked the court to award damages amounting to up to $2,500 per violation, or the profits generated by the illegal services, plus costs, attorneys fees and investigative expenses relating to the case. The final order (judgment) made that award.
One of the two individuals behind the four piracy sites has a mailing address in Argentina. The court reached the other one via email.
Further reading
Order. DISH Network LLC and Sling TV LLC Plaintiffs vs. Juan Barcan and Juan Nahuel Pereyra, individually and collectively dba live-nba.stream, freefeds.com, sportsbay.org and sportsbay.tv. August 14, 2023. Case 4-21-cv-2384. US District Court Southern District of Texas, Houston Division
Exhibits. DISH Network LLC and Sling TV LLC Plaintiffs vs. Juan Barcan and Juan Nahuel Pereyra, individually and collectively dba live-nba.stream, freefeds.com, sportsbay.org and sportsbay.tv. August 14, 2023. Case 4-21-cv-2384. US District Court Southern District of Texas, Houston Division
Modified Complaint. Order. DISH Network LLC and Sling TV LLC Plaintiffs vs. Juan Barcan and Juan Nahuel Pereyra, individually and collectively dba live-nba.stream, freefeds.com, sportsbay.org and sportsbay.tv. January 11, 2022. Case 4-21-cv-2384. US District Court Southern District of Texas, Houston Division
DISH and Sling revise DMCA complaint to identify individuals behind Sportsbay. Article. January 12, 2022. Piracy Monitor
Why it matters
As with other cases filed by DISH Network and its sister companies, the goal is not necessarily to collect the award in its entirety, but to make sure that the individuals and anyone associated with them do not undertake such venture in the future.
Or as one industry friend of Piracy Monitor says: “The whole point is to put these offenders out of business and never hear from them again.”
