The Court in the Southern District of Florida in the United States has ruled in favor of ABS-CBN Corp. against 21 pirate website operators.
The US court order includes an award of damages in excess of $1 million against each of the 21 pirate website operators.
The websites associated with these illegal operations are streaming portals offering free access to ABS-CBN content in the US and abroad.
Due to the website operators’ failure to appear in court or participate in the lawsuit, the court approved ABS-CBN’s request for $1 million in trademark damages against each of the site operators.
Additionally, six of the pirate website operators were ordered to pay between $30,000 to $90,000 in damages for copyright infringement.
Further, thefilipinochannel.su was ordered to pay another $10,000 in cybersquatting damages for its domain name, which is confusingly similar to one of ABS-CBN’s registered trademarks.
Despite the challenge of not knowing the identities of the pirate domain operators, the default judgment takes direct aim at their wallets. The order includes a provision that requires advertising service providers to turn over any restrained revenue generated by the pirate websites. These funds were previously restrained in a temporary restraining order against the website operators.
