Hollywood Studios Sue Pirate IPTV Services in U.S. Court

Members of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) filed two separate copyright infringement lawsuits yesterday, targeting the alleged operators of IPTV services including 'Outer Limits IPTV', 'Shrugs' and 'Zing'. Amazon, Netflix and several major Hollywood studios demand an end to the infringing activity and an award for damages, which could run to millions of dollars.

 The Internet is littered with cheap IPTV services that offer access to a lot of content, for very little money.

These deals often seem too good to be true and in most cases they are; at least for those who prefer to stay on the right side of the law.

Yesterday, members of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) filed two lawsuits against alleged operators of pirate IPTV services in the United States. Amazon, Netflix, Disney, Paramount, and other major Hollywood studios, accuse the defendants of widespread copyright infringement.

Lawsuit 1: Shrugs and Zing

The first case was filed at a federal court in Pennsylvania, listing Mechanicsburg resident Brandon Weibley as the alleged operator of several commercial IPTV services that offered pirated streams.

Hollywood vs. Weibley
 

The complaint notes that Weibley has a long history of illegally profiting from pirated content and engaging in mass copyright infringement. This activity goes back to 2017, when he registered the domain beastmodebuilds.com and began selling subscriptions to infringing streaming services.

In the years that followed, the defendant was linked to various IPTV brands, such as Beast Mode Live, BTV, Viking Media, and GreenWing Media. These sold subscriptions, offering access to hundreds of pirated TV channels including international content and live sports events.

Cease and Desist

While the defendant made efforts to conceal his identity, investigators followed a digital trail that led to his personal email address. This address was listed in the source code of the invoices sent to subscribers via Cashapp.

In December 2023, the movie studios eventually confronted Weibley, demanding that he cease the copyright infringing activities. However, this advance warning didn’t lead to the desired result.

The defendant allegedly switched the operation to a different domain name, vonwik.com, and continued to offer thousands of TV channels through the pirate IPTV services, which were rebranded to ‘Shrugs’ and ‘Zing’.

“Weibley now provides subscribers to the Current Infringing Services with access to more than 9,000 pirated channels, featuring Plaintiffs’ television series and movies, as well as international content and live sports events. This is infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works on a massive scale,” Plaintiffs write.

Shrugs and Zing

These pirate IPTV services continue to harm the movie industry, plaintiffs allege, and they hope that the lawsuit will help to bring an end to it. In addition to an injunction, requiring the IPTV services to shut down, the rightsholders also demand damages.

The legal paperwork lists examples of more than 50 copyrighted works, including The Boys, The Witcher, Forrest Gump, Moana, Back to the Future, and Wonder Woman. With a maximum of $150,000 per infringed work, the potential damages could easily reach millions of dollars.

Lawsuit 2: Outer Limits IPTV

Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, a second lawsuit was filed in a California federal court yesterday. This case is again managed by ACE, acting on behalf of several Hollywood players. In this case, Apple also makes an appearance as one of the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs allege that Murrieta resident Zachary DeBarr is the owner of Outer Limits IPTV. This ‘pirate’ service offered access to over 4,000 live channels and a VOD library of more than 13,000 movie titles and over 3,000 TV series.

Hollywood vs. DeBarr
 

The defendant has allegedly been involved in reselling pirate IPTV services and tools since 2017. DeBarr purportedly sold modified Fire TV Stick devices, as well as subscriptions to the pirate streaming services Nitro TV and Glitch TV.

Plaintiffs allege that, in 2020, the defendant started his own IPTV service under the Outer Limits IPTV brand. These subscriptions were sold for $20 per month to $200 per year.

iTrustStream YouTube channel

The complaint further notes that DeBarr owns the iTrustStream YouTube channel, which has over 100,000 subscribers. In the past, he allegedly used the YouTube audience to publicly promote his Outer Limits IPTV service.

“DeBarr regularly posted video content and engaged with listeners during live-chat discussions on YouTube. Several of the videos uploaded to the iTrustStream YouTube channel from 2020 feature DeBarr promoting Outer Limits,” the complaint reads.

The YouTube video highlighted in the complaint, linking to the Outer Limits IPTV service, is still online at the time of writing.

From the complaint
 

Before filing the lawsuit, the movie companies, presumably through ACE, repeatedly tried to get in contact with the defendant to resolve the matter out of court. All attempts to contact DeBarr in-person, over the phone, and via email were ultimately unsuccessful.

“DeBarr has not responded to any of Plaintiffs’ communications, thus forcing Plaintiffs to file this lawsuit so they can protect their rights and prevent DeBarr’s ongoing infringement,” the complaint reads.

Similar to the Weibley case, DeBarr is accused of copyright infringement on a massive scale. The movie companies request an injunction to stop this activity, as well as statutory damages, which can potentially run into the millions of dollars.

MPA and ACE Take the Lead

The lawsuits filed yesterday are similar but unrelated. This is also stressed in a press release by the Motion Picture Association’s anti-piracy arm ACE, which appears to manage the legal effort.

“These lawsuits demonstrate ACE’s unwavering commitment to protecting the creative industry from digital piracy from coast to coast and around the world,” says MPA’s Senior Executive Vice President, Karyn Temple, commenting on the action.

“Illegal IPTV services not only harm creators and legitimate streaming platforms but also expose consumers to potential security and fraud risks. We will continue to take decisive legal action to shut down these operations and hold infringers accountable,” Temple adds.

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A copy of the complaint against Brandon Weibley, filed in the filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, is available here (pdf). The complaint against Zachary DeBarr, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California can be found here (pdf).

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