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Court Officially Orders U.S.-Based IPTV Operator to Pay Amazon & Netflix $18.75 Million [tvnitro]In March of 2024, the Dallas-based IPTV operator William Freemon [was sued for copyright infringement][1] by Amazon, Netflix, and several major Hollywood studios. Freemon defended himself but failed to hire a lawyer for his company, Freemon Technology Industries (FTI). Instead, he responded by filing various motions while refusing to formally answer the copyright infringement complaint. With the case not moving forward, the movie companies eventually had enough and requested a default judgment of $18,750,000 in copyright damages. Last month, a Texas magistrate judge [recommended granting][2] this in full, and this week, the order was formally adopted by U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay. ## Judge Grants $18,750,000 Judgment As [detailed in our earlier coverage][3], Freemon allegedly operated four unauthorized streaming services: Streaming TV Now, TV Nitro, Instant IPTV, and Cash App IPTV. In addition, he was accused of running a pirate IPTV reseller operation called Live TV Resellers. ‘Streaming TV Now’ was the most popular IPTV service, according to the legal paperwork. It first appeared online in 2020 and offers access to 11,000 live channels, as well as on-demand access to over 27,000 movies and 9,000 TV series. The studios identified a sample of 125 copyrighted works that were available through the IPTV services, including Universal’s Oppenheimer. As damages compensation, the court granted the recommended statutory maximum of $150,000 per work for willful infringement, for a total of $18,750,000. This judgment amount will continue to grow, as the court approved a 3.51% annual post-judgment interest rate until the amount is paid in full. In addition, the attorneys’ fee award has yet to be determined and will also add to the total. *From the default judgment* [default] In addition to the damages, Judge Lindsay also entered a permanent injunction, which bars Freemon and FTI from reproducing, distributing, or publicly performing any of the plaintiffs’ copyrighted works, and from assisting others in doing so. ## Injunction Targets Domain Names The signed injunction also requires the eight domain names to be transferred immeidately to the studios’ control: instantiptv.net, streamingtvnow.com, streamingtvnow.net, tvnitro.net, cashappiptv.com, livetvresellers.com, stncloud.ltd, and stnlive.ltd. The associated domain registrars have five days to facilitate theese transfers. If they fail to do so, the TLD registries can be ordered to either transfer the domains to a registrar of the studios’ choosing, or place them on registry hold, which would make them inaccessible too. To address a potential whack-a-mole scenario, the studios can also return to court to add further domains to the injunction, as long as evidence shows Freemon operates them. All in all, the court order is a clear victory for the movie companies. Whether the defendant will be able to pay over $18 million in damages is another matter. The domain seizure order does not have an immediate effect either, as all the mentioned domains have been offline for a while already. That said, if Freemon ever attempts to relaunch the services, the movie companies will come prepared. *—* * * *A copy of the default judgment, signed March 11, at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, is available [here (pdf)][4].* From: [TF][5], for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. [1]: https://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-studios-amazon-and-net… [2]: https://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-amazon-netflix-set-to-… [3]: https://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-amazon-netflix-set-to-… [4]: https://torrentfreak.com/images/amazon-freemon-appr.pdf [5]: https://torrentfreak.com/ https://torrentfreak.com/court-officially-orders-u-s-base…

Court Dismisses DISH’s $25 Million IPTV Piracy Lawsuit Against UK Hosting Provider [ukflag]As pirate IPTV services have continued to grow in recent years, TV broadcasters and distributors have intensified their efforts to combat the problem. Pay TV provider [DISH Network][1], in tandem with the International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy ([IBCAP][2]), has been particularly active on this front, filing a series of lawsuits in the United States. ## DISH vs. Innetra In one of these cases, DISH last year filed a copyright infringement complaint [against UK hosting provider ‘Innetra PC’][3] at a California federal court, accusing the company of aiding widespread copyright infringement while ignoring takedown requests. Based on IBCAP’s evidence, the complaint alleged that [Innetra][4] provided essential infrastructure for pirate streaming services, including the separately targeted [Lemo TV and Kemo IPTV][5], as well as Honeybee, Xtremehd, and Caliptostreams. In its complaint, DISH argued that Innetra could not rely on safe harbor protection, as it largely ignored hundreds of infringement notices. Additionally, Innetra allegedly failed to designate a DMCA agent and had no policy for terminating repeat infringers. The complaint listed 171 copyrighted works and requested damages of up to $25 million against Innetra and its general partner, Elna Paulette Valentin [ was also named][6] as a defendant personally. ## Innetra Requested Dismissal In July last year, Innetra responded with a [motion to dismiss][7]. The company argued that the court lacked jurisdiction, as the UK company has minimal to no contacts with the United States or California. Among other things, Innetra said it had no U.S. servers and had signed up just one paying U.S. customer since its founding, whose account was only active for two months. The hosting provider did not disregard the idea of a legal battle entirely. Instead, it said that if DISH insisted on filing a lawsuit, it could do so in the United Kingdom, not in the United States. “Dish may pursue its dispute in the United Kingdom, where Innetra is located. Dish, however, may not force foreign defendants that lack minimum contacts with the United States, let alone California, to defend themselves in the United States,” Inntra wrote in its motion last year. ## Court Dismisses $25 Million Lawsuit After the motion to dismiss was filed, the court allowed DISH sixty days of jurisdictional discovery before ruling on the motion to dismiss. However, that proved not to be enough to overcome the jurisdiction challenges. Last week, Judge Noël Wise granted Innetra’s motion to dismiss, concluding that DISH had failed to demonstrate specific personal jurisdiction over the UK hosting company. The case was dismissed without prejudice. [conclusion] The court applied the “purposeful direction” test established in recent Ninth Circuit case law, which requires a plaintiff to show that a defendant made regular sales in the forum and consciously cultivated a customer base there. However, based on the evidence provided by DISH, that is not the case here. At the time of the alleged infringement, in 2024, Innetra had no U.S. customers at all. Two American customers briefly appeared in 2025: one paid $682 over two months before cancelling, and the other signed up for nine days without purchasing anything. The court described these contacts as “scant, fleeting, and attenuated.” DISH also argued that Innetra’s peering arrangements with [NTT][8] and [Lumen][9] showed a deliberate effort to reach U.S. users. However, evidence provided during discovery showed that Innetra contracted with the German and Dutch branches of these companies, not their U.S. affiliates. Innetra did not use U.S.-based servers from these companies. Finally, the court was not convinced by DISH’s evidence that nearly 49,000 instances of pirate IPTV services used Innetra’s infrastructure to transmit content into the U.S. Since these pirate services were making the connection to U.S. users, not Innetra, the hosting provider is not responsible for jurisdictional purposes. ## What’s Next? Because the case was dismissed without prejudice, DISH is allowed to refile the case, potentially with extra evidence. And as Innetra noted in its motion to dismiss, DISH can also file a lawsuit in the United Kingdom if they like. For Innetra, putting up a defense turned out to be vital. After all, another DISH lawsuit against Ukraine-based hosting provider Virtual Systems recently showed that not responding in court can result in a [multi-million-dollar default judgment.][10] For now, there is no sign of follow-up action against Innetra yet. However, DISH certainly continues its enforcement efforts elsewhere. Just last month, the company filed a [fresh $21 million lawsuit against pirate IPTV operation DMTN][11], whose operator allegedly posed as Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. *—* * * *A copy of U.S. District Court Judge Noël Wise’s order on the motion to dismiss is available [here (pdf)][12].* From: [TF][13], for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. [1]: https://www.dish.com/ [2]: https://www.ibcap.org/ [3]: https://torrentfreak.com/dish-sues-uk-hosting-provider-in… [4]: https://innetra.com/ [5]: https://torrentfreak.com/dish-sues-pirate-iptv-services-l… [6]: https://torrentfreak.com/uk-hosting-provider-asks-court-t… [7]: https://torrentfreak.com/uk-hosting-provider-asks-court-t… [8]: https://www.nttdata.com/global/en/ [9]: https://www.lumen.com/en-us/services/google-internet-peer… [10]: https://torrentfreak.com/dish-wins-42m-default-judgment-a… [11]: https://torrentfreak.com/dish-sues-dmtn-iptv-in-21m-pirac… [12]: https://torrentfreak.com/images/innetra-dismiss-1.pdf [13]: https://torrentfreak.com/ https://torrentfreak.com/court-dismisses-dishs-25-million…