The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has entered an $18.75 million default judgment against William Freemon, a longtime digital piracy operator leading multiple illegal IPTV services, including Streaming TV Now, Instant IPTV, and TV Nitro; for wilful copyright infringement.
Freemon also operated a reseller program, Live TV Resellers, where he recruited others to sell subscriptions to illegal IPTV services.
Combined, defendant Freemon’s direct-to-consumer sites received nearly 500,000 visits in 2024 with an average of over 45,000 visits per month. Streaming TV Now was active in December 2020, and received an average of about 13,700 monthly visitors (over 6,000 of which are unique visits).
The Streaming TV Now site charged subscription fees of $20/month or $150/year to give access to over 11,000 illegal channels and a video-on- demand service that offers over 27,000 movies and over 9,000 TV series. This leads to an estimate that the site yields about $750,000 to $3,750,000 of income annually, assuming between 1% and 5% of the 500,000 annual visits convert to annual subscriptions at $150 per year.
Final judgment
According to the default final judgment issued March 11, 2026:
Plaintiffs Amazon Content Services LLC; Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.; Disney Enterprises, Inc.; Netflix US, LLC; Netflix Worldwide Entertainment, LLC; Paramount Pictures Corporation; Sony Pictures Animation Inc.; Universal City Studios Productions LLLP; and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (“Plaintiffs”) are entitled to and shall recover against Defendants William Freemon, II (“Mr. Freemon”) and Freemon Technology Industries, LLC (“FTI LLC”) (collectively, “Defaulting Defendants”) $18,750,000 in statutory damages; a permanent injunction, … and postjudgment interest on the entire amount of the judgment ($18,750,000) at the current federal rate of 3.51% per annum from the date of the entry of judgment until paid in full; that all allowable and reasonable costs are taxed against Defaulting Defendants; and that any and all requests for relief sought by Plaintiffs against the remaining Domain Defendants* is dismissed with prejudice as duplicative of the relief awarded against Mr. Freemon and FTI LLC as the Defaulting Defendants.
Furthermore, they must transfer the domain names of instantiptv.net, streamingtvnow.com, streamingtvnow.net, tvnitro.net, cashappiptv.com, livetvresellers.com, stncloud.ltd, and stnlive.ltd (the “Infringing Domains”) to ACE.
The case was Amazon Content Services et al. vs William Freemon, INSTANTIPTV.NET et al. Civil Action case no. 3:24-CV-733. Complaint was filed on March 27, 2024. US District Court of the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division. Final judgment was issued March 11, 2026.
Why it matters
Freemon’s services unlawfully provided subscribers with access to thousands of movie titles, television channels, premium content, and live sports programming, undermining legitimate distribution channels and harming the creative community. The judgment was part of ACE’s ongoing global campaign to dismantle illegal streaming operations and hold repeat infringers accountable.
“This ruling sends a clear message to digital piracy operators: your actions have consequences,” said Karyn Temple, Senior Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel for the Motion Picture Association. “We welcome the court’s decision and remain committed to aggressively pursuing individuals and networks that threaten the creative economy.”
Further reading
ACE secures $18.75 million judgment against Streaming TV Now operator. Press release. March 12, 2026. ACE (Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment)
Studios sue Dallas-based operator of multiple piracy sites for copyright infringement. Article. March 27, 2024. by Steven Hawley. Piracy Monitor
