A few weeks ago it was reported that Dish had filed two lawsuits targeting IPTV services. Yesterday, Dish formally announced the lawsuits and explained why they are taking these steps.
The two IPTV services Dish targeted are Spider-TV and Tiger Star and, according to the complaint, Dish is suing them for broadcasting certain TV channels licensed exclusively to Dish.
“We feel it is our responsibility to ensure the channels and shows we pay to carry exclusively are not pirated and sold illegally,” said Timothy Messner, executive vice president and general counsel at DISH in a statement on their site. “Despite our best efforts to ask both Spider-TV and Tiger Star voluntarily to cease transmitting the channels without authorization, they have continued to distribute the content, leaving us no course but legal action.”
According to Dish they sent more than 100 notices to Spider-TV and Tiger Star requesting that they cease transmitting television content in violation of Dish exclusive contract.
According to the complaint, “Defendants capture live broadcast signals of the Protected Channels, transcode these signals into a format useful for streaming over the Internet, transfer the transcoded content to one or more servers provided, controlled, and maintained by Defendants, and then transmit the Protected channels to users of the Service through OTT delivery, including users in the United States.”
These lawsuits and others like them could break new ground for legal precedent in regard to streaming content online. Expect these cases to be closely watched by all sides.
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