Dish Network has reportedly filed separate lawsuits in Maryland and Texas targeting two operators of online platforms Dish said are stealing its linear programming and illegally streaming it over the internet in the U.S.
According to Torrent Freak, Dish is suing Maryland corporation Dima Furniture Inc. and its principal, Mohammad Yusif, which it said are doing business as “Spider-TV.”
Dish accuses Spider-TV of “capturing broadcasts of television channels exclusively licensed to Dish and unlawfully retransmitting these channels over the internet to their customers throughout the United States, 24 hours per day, seven days per week.”
Dish said Spider-TV is selling a set-top box and 13 months of service for $199. Dish said that in July 2015, Yusif registered Spider-TV as a trade name of Dima Furniture with Maryland state tax officials, describing the business as “Television Channel Installation.”
“Defendants capture live broadcast signals of the protected channels, transcode these signals into a format useful for streaming over the internet, transfer the transcoded content to one or more servers provided, controlled, and maintained by defendants, and then transmit the protected channels to users of the service through OTT delivery, including users in the United States,” the lawsuit said.
A second suit, filed in Texas, similarly targets Mo’ Ayad Fawzi Al Zayed and his Shenzhen Tiger Star operation, which Dish said sells a set-top and a year of service for $179. Dish also accuses Shenzhen of basing the U.S. service off its stolen content.
Last year, Dish filed a similar suit against the operators of two add-ons to the popular online piracy platform Kodi, ZemTV and TVAddons.ag.