In late July 2010, DISH Network, EchoStar Technologies, NagraStar and Bell TV commenced legal actions against an organization known as Dark Angel. Injunctions have been obtained and civil search orders executed against the founder of Dark Angel, known online as “echel0n”. The execution of the Orders resulted in the seizure of substantial evidence and information, the shutdown of Dark Angel’s illegal equipment, and shutdown of the websites www.dark-angel.ca and www.darkangel.com.pa. The takeover of Dark Angel is another victory in NagraStar‘s continuing efforts to preempt satellite television piracy in North America.
This week, NagraStar continued its initiatives aimed at preventing piracy by seizing domain names www.tvkeyz.com, www.tvkeyzforums.com, and www.tvkeyznews.com. NagraStar’s initiative follows the United States Federal Government’s recent seizure of domestic and international domain names of popular pirate websites (http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1006/100630losangeles.htm), including execution of federal warrants for content and servers in the United States and the Netherlands, sending a clear message that so-called “off shore” websites are not beyond the reach of intellectual property laws.
In March 2010, DISH Network, NagraStar and Bell TV obtained and executed civil search orders and interim injunctions against the principal players behind KBox-brand FTA receivers including (1) Joshua Kim a.k.a. Kortronix Inc., the originator of the KBox, (2) Nhan Tran d.b.a. Transat Electronics and www.transatelectronics.ca, the exclusive distributor of the KBox in Canada, and (3) Hisham Omran and Fona Dish Networking, a KBox dealer, all of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The lawsuit also named Van Tran of Transat Electronics Brampton, another KBox dealer. The execution of the orders resulted in the seizure and shutdown of all KBox Internet Key Sharing servers intended for illegal use of KBox-brand FTA receivers. The orders also resulted in seizure of numerous KBox FTA receivers and KHub “dongles”, and the shutdown of the piracy web sites www.hellosat.com and www.kboxteam.com. Following the execution of the orders, several defendants entered into settlement agreements with the Plaintiffs that included cooperation and permanent injunctions preventing them from dealing in any way in FTA receivers in the future. This is another major victory to prevent satellite television piracy in North America.
After relocating to a server in Singapore, www.iksprivateserver.com has again been taken down as a result of international cooperation to prevent piracy. This swift action follows the seizure of the website’s server in Germany.
Today, www.iksprivateserver.com and www.nfusionprivateserver.com, hosted on servers in Germany, were seized by NagraStar, obtaining valuable data about the operators of the website and customer data related to purchasers of the illegal service.
