ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- April 18, 2017
A federal court has ruled that the owners of the Lool IPTV service unlawfully streamed international television channels to users in the United States in violation of rights held by DISH. As part of the ruling, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas ordered a $1,050,000 judgement in favor of DISH from defendants Lool Tech Co., Limited and Shenzhen Bilinren Technology Co., Ltd., d/b/a Shenzhen Lool Tech Co., Ltd.
“DISH works diligently with international programmers to legally deliver their content to consumers in the United States,” said Alex Fonoroff, senior corporate counsel at DISH. “This judgment makes it clear that the courts will not stand by and allow unauthorized services like Lool to profit at the expense of consumers, programmers, and lawful providers.”
According to the court’s final judgement, the Lool defendants retransmitted channels in which DISH holds exclusive rights, and copyrighted works that air on those channels, to users of their Lool IPTV service. In doing so, the court held that Lool directly infringed DISH’s exclusive rights to distribute and publicly perform the works that air on the channels.
The court also found that Lool further violated DISH’s rights by using the Lool IPTV boxes to share pirated content between users, and that the Lool defendants encouraged this activity rather than taking simple steps to prevent it. As a result of the ruling, the Lool defendants and entities affiliated with them, including retailers and other sellers of the Lool IPTV device, are permanently enjoined from copying, retransmitting, distributing, and promoting channels in violation of DISH’s rights.
DISH is enforcing the order against retailers who sell the Lool IPTV box and similar devices, including working with local investigators to identify retailers who sell the Lool IPTV box. DISH is also enforcing the order against internet service providers that support the defendants' service, which will result in the partial or complete termination of the Lool IPTV service for users in the United States.
A copy of the Lool complaint can be found here, and a copy of the ruling can be found here.
DISH was represented in the Lool lawsuit by the law firm of Hagan Noll & Boyle LLC.
About DISH
DISH Network Corp. (NASDAQ:DISH), through its subsidiaries, provides approximately 13.671 million pay-TV subscribers, as of Dec. 31, 2016, with the highest-quality programming and technology with the most choices at the best value. DISH offers a high definition line-up with more than 200 national HD channels, the most international channels and award-winning HD and DVR technology. DISH Network Corporation is a Fortune 200 company. Visit www.dish.com.
Subscribe to DISH email alerts: http://about.dish.com/alerts
Follow @DISHNews on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/DISHNews
# # #
Media Contact
720-514-5351
DISH NEWS
