The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas has sentenced the platform ChitramTV to a fine of $ 31.05 million for having infringed the copyright of 207 works, with a fine of $ 150,000 for each work. Last March, the platform was sued for that amount, and finally the plaintiffs, in this case DISH Network, has come out the winner.
ChitramTV: one of the biggest pirate websites in Asia
The owner of the service was Dinesh Vigneswaran, which offered the service in Canada through the web Chitram.ca. The domain is still operational on that website, but the prices do not appear. There are also other Chitram websites which offers links to Europe and Asia, where annual prices are charged for their content. Specifically, a player that came with preloaded links at a price of 119 euros per year. In the case of the links, these had a duration of 14 months and they cost 99 euros. In another version oriented to India they offer the option of 6 months for 59 euros.
The platform was in demand for distributing, selling and promoting the use of its players with subscription packages that included more than 500 live channels and more than 10,000 movies, which were also offered through resellers.
The service began operating in at least July 2014, when DISH began sending copyright claims to them. After sending 134 of them, the service temporarily stopped offering its content. However, in December 2017, the service offered the content again.
The web loses its domains
Although they managed to identify Dinesh, the rest of the service operators have not been identified. They have been tried to contact them by email and have been sued, but have not been successful. Therefore, although the 31 million is a fairly high amount, it will be difficult for them to collect any of that money.
The resolution also obliges companies such as Private Layer, IP Volume, Cooperative Investments, Owl Protect, Virtual Systems, Alkar0AS and FDCServers not to work with this company. In turn, the web will be prohibited from using the domains Thulsi.tv, Chitram.tv, Chitram.ca, Oranthservice.site and Newmembership.net, which will be controlled by DISH.
The service reportedly operated out of India, and was one of the most popular in the entire South Asian region. From the International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) are very happy with the result, and say that this way they will be able to close and pursue any pirate IPTV reseller related to the platform. If they discover any reselling, they will proceed to sue it, and warn that it is not worth selling pirated IPTV, because sooner or later you will have to deal with them before a judge.