In a surprising twist more than a decade after the demise of the contentious SOPA legislation, a US court has showcased that the power to block websites has been within reach all along. In response to lawsuits targeting three pirate streaming services, injunctions have been handed down, mandating that every ISP in the United States take measures to prevent their subscribers from accessing these sites.
Earlier this year, Moshe Edery, a prominent producer and cinema investor, sent shockwaves through the corridors of Mastercard, Visa, and American Express. His gripe? Their continued facilitation of payment processing for pirate streaming sites.
Edery, co-founder of Screen iL, an international TV streaming platform targeting Israelis abroad, minced no words, accusing these financial giants of turning a blind eye to criminal copyright infringement and money laundering. He warned that their complicity could land them in legal hot water.
Fast forward to the present, and Edery-affiliated companies have just notched up a trio of copyright victories in the United States. These landmark judgments and injunctions not only mark a breakthrough in US legal history but also stand as a monumental win in the ongoing battle against piracy.
The Legal Showdown Unfolds Last year, a consortium of companies led by United King Film Distribution, DBS Satellite Services, and Hot Communication took aim at three notorious pirate streaming sites. Their targets: Israel-tv.com, Israel.tv, and Sdarot.tv—the latter boasting millions of monthly visitors as Israel’s premier pirate streaming hub.
While the lawsuits initially seemed routine, demanding hefty damages and injunctions to halt infringement, the outcome proved anything but ordinary. With the defendants notably absent from court proceedings, the plaintiffs secured resounding victories via default judgments.
In a staggering blow, the court ordered the operators of each site to cough up a whopping $7.65 million in statutory damages for infringing on 51 copyrighted works owned by the plaintiffs.
But it’s the unprecedented injunctions accompanying these judgments that truly steal the spotlight. Never before have TV and movie piracy cases witnessed such decisive legal action.
Landmark Legal Decisions Redefine Boundaries in the US
Venturing into uncharted legal waters, the recent judgments in all three cases have set a new precedent in the US legal landscape. The defendants have been slapped with permanent injunctions, effectively barring them from infringing upon the plaintiffs’ rights in any manner. This includes streaming, distributing, or making any of the copyrighted works accessible to the public.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Not only are the defendants prohibited from operating their websites from their current domains, but they’re also banned from using any alternate domains in the future. This unprecedented move sends a clear message: there’s no escaping the long arm of the law when it comes to protecting intellectual property rights.
All ISPs…and any other ISPs providing services in the United States shall block access to the Website at any domain address known today…or to be used in the future by the Defendants…by any technological means available on the ISPs’ systems.
Accompanying each verdict is a comprehensive roster of US-based Internet service providers tasked with the formidable duty of blocking not only the current domains employed by the pirate platforms but also any potential ones that may arise in the future. While the initial glimpse reveals just the tip of the iceberg on the first page of the list, brace yourself for a total of nine pages encompassing nearly 100 residential ISPs.
Moreover, the injunctions make it abundantly clear that this list is merely the beginning, leaving no stone unturned as the orders extend to encompass all other ISPs operating within the United States.
“The domain addresses and any Newly Detected Websites shall be channeled in such a way that users will be unable to connect and/or use the Website, and will be diverted by the ISPs’ DNS servers to a landing page operated and controlled by Plaintiffs,” the injunctions continue.
It’s not clear how long it will take all ISPs in the United States to comply with the order but the specified landing page is already live at http://zira-usa-11025.org.
What we’re witnessing here is the culmination of three remarkably similar judgments, each accompanied by permanent injunctions that mandate all ISPs in the United States to enforce whole-site blocking to combat copyright infringement. But what sets these injunctions apart is their dynamic nature—they’re crafted to adapt to any cunning anti-blocking tactics the sites might employ down the line.
While such injunctions are already in play in several other nations, it appears that this is the maiden voyage for copyright holders wielding such extensive authority within the United States. It’s a stark contrast to the promises of SOPA, which envisioned whole-site blocking for piracy a decade ago. Little did we know that existing copyright laws were already equipped with such potent tools.
Supplementary Elements of the Injunctions
In a sweeping move, all three injunctions lay down stringent guidelines, prohibiting any third-party entity—from ISPs and web hosts to DNS providers and advertising services—from engaging in any form of business with the targeted sites, both at their current domains and any potential new ones.
But it doesn’t end there. The injunctions go further, mandating that all domains associated with the infringing sites redirect to landing pages operated by the plaintiffs. Additionally, any accounts held by the defendants across various companies must be swiftly located and frozen, with funds transferred to the plaintiffs to satisfy the damages outlined in each judgment within a tight 30-day window.
Not stopping at freezing accounts, the plaintiffs are granted the authority to delve deeper through additional discovery, targeting any entity believed to be affiliated with the infringing sites or their operators in a bid to uncover further assets.
As for the defendants, while they retain the option to appeal the Court’s ruling, their absence in the courtroom thus far suggests otherwise. The looming question remains: will ISPs across the United States contest the injunction? The answer remains uncertain, but one thing is clear: if they opt not to, these three ground-breaking site-blocking injunctions are just the beginning of a new era in the United States.