In January, DISH Network and DISH subsidiary Sling TV amended a complaint originally filed in July 2021 to identify two individuals residing in Argentina that operated the pirate Web sites sportsbay.org, sportsbay.tv, live-nba.stream, and freefeds.com; contending that they proactively circumvented DRM protection technologies to steal and live-stream stolen content licensed to Sling TV on the four sites.
The sites have been offline since September
Each of the sportsbay sites used Cloudflare as a reverse proxy passthrough service. Each of them used the same Google Analytics ID. Three of them used Namecheap Inc for privacy-protected domain registration.
DISH and Sling claim copyright violations under the DMCA. The sportsbay sites offer a variety of sports channels.
Claims cited in the revised complaint include
- Circumventing Technological Measures in Violation of the DMCA, 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)(A) for the purpose of commercial advantage and private financial gain. Defendants knew or should have known that their actions were illegal and prohibited
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Trafficking in Circumvention Technology and Services in Violation of the DMCA, 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(2), allowing Sportsbay users to circumvent the security measures employed by Sling’s DRM technologies protecting Sling Programming, and thereby receive Sling Programming without authorization from Sling or DISH
DISH and Sling are asking for the greater of either statutory damages of up to $2,500 per violation or the profits generated by the illegal services, plus recovery of costs, attorneys fees and investigative expenses.
Read the amended complaint (Case 4:21-cv-2384, Document 11, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division (via PACER)
Why it matters
This is a relatively straightforward piracy complaint and can serve as guidance for future complaints
