DENVER—The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) has filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against the operators of the illegal streaming service known as DMTN IPTV, as well as Idriss Premium TV and Max TV (collectively, DMTN IPTV).
The federal lawsuit alleges that DMTN IPTV illegally transmitted copyrighted content owned by IBCAP members, despite repeated requests for compliance under U.S. copyright law. According to the complaint, IBCAP issued 68 notices of infringement to the operator and 435 takedown notices to hosting companies used by the defendants since 2020.
“This lawsuit against DMTN IPTV is the latest in a long line of legal actions to enforce copyrights that are being blatantly infringed by pirate services,” said Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP. “Our strategy of working with our members to protect their content by continually detecting and removing infringing streams has been highly successful. Nevertheless, when a pirate continues to ignore our takedown requests, the next step is to coordinate legal action. In line with past lawsuit wins, we expect a similar outcome in this case, including a broad injunction that can be enforced against third parties, such as hosting providers, CDNs, ISPs and payment processors to stop this infringement.”
At the time of filing the complaint, the website used to promote and market the infringing service promised customers “No More Cable Bills” and stated that DMTN IPTV “can be installed on any device.” The complaint also describes deceptive tactics allegedly used by the operators to hide illegal activities over the years, including providing PayPal sales receipt descriptions for leather goods rather than for the infringing service.
The suit names Idriss Elkasmi, based in Fes, Morocco, as the direct infringer and primary operator of the service, along with other Doe defendants. It further alleges that Ali Ezzaary, along with other Doe defendants, promote and enable access to the infringing service as secondary infringers.
The lawsuit seeks statutory damages totaling more than $21 million. It also seeks a permanent injunction, transfer of domains used by the service and court orders preventing third parties, including hosting providers, CDNs, ISPs and payment processors, from supporting the infringing operation.
The lawsuit was coordinated by IBCAP and filed by IBCAP member DISH Network. All evidence for the case was obtained and provided by the IBCAP lab. A copy of the complaint can be found here.
