U.S. federal court orders 27 pirate sites to pay ABS-CBN $27M in damages

FORT LAUDERDALE — A US Federal District Court in Florida ordered 27 pirate site operators to each pay $1 million for a total of $27 million in damages to media giant ABS-CBN which has scored several victories in US courts this year.

The lawsuit, filed last December 2018, targets more than three dozen domain names, including dramaofw.ch, vidco.su, pinoyflixtv.com, pinoytvlovershd.com, and tambayand.com. These streaming portals offer access to Filipino content in the U.S. and abroad, attracting global visitors from all over the world.

“Defendants’ websites are operating in blatant disregard of the rights of ABS-CBN and willfully infringing ABS-CBN’s intellectual property.  These pirates will be stopped wherever they are in the world,” according to ABS-CBN Assistant Vice President of Global Anti-Piracy Elisha Lawrence.

ABS-CBN’s most recent win follows a pattern of similar verdicts in recent years. With these lawsuits, the company has managed to score dozens of millions of dollars in damages from a wide variety of streaming sites.

Moreover, as part of this judgment, any advertising revenue earned by these pirate websites must be handed over to ABS-CBN.

The permanent injunction in this judgment also requires the domain name registrars and registries of the pirate sites to transfer the domain names to ABS-CBN.

Lawrence added: “It is another great legal victory for ABS-CBN.  This substantial award by the US federal court sends the strong message that the content owner has the legal right to protect its content from being given away for free by pirates.”