Federal judge ordered all Internet service providers in the United States to block three pirated streaming services operated by Doe defendants who never appeared in court and hid behind false identities.
The blocking orders affect Israel.tv, Israeli-tv.com and Sdarot.tv, as well as related domains listed in the rulings, and any other domains where the infringing websites may reappear in the future. The orders come in three essentially identical rulings (see here , here , and here ) issued April 26 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Each decision provides a list of 96 ISPs expected to block the websites, including Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. But the rulings say all ISPs must comply, even if they’re not on the list:
It is further ordered that all Internet Service Providers (including without limitation those listed in Appendix B hereto) and all other Internet Service Providers providing services in the United States block access to the Website at any domain address known today ( including but not limited to those set forth in Appendix A hereto) or to be used in the future by the Defendants (“Newly Discovered Websites”) through any technological means available in the Internet Service Providers’ systems. Domain addresses and all newly discovered websites will be channeled in such a way that users will not be able to connect to and/or use the website and will be redirected by the ISP’s DNS servers to a landing page operated and controlled by the claimants (“Target page’).
This landing page is available here and cites US District Judge Catherine Polk File’s order blocking all access to this website/service for copyright infringement.
“If you have been harmed in any way by the court’s decision, you may file a petition in the Federal Court for the Southern District of New York in the above case,” the landing page also states.
“They went all the way to hide”
The three lawsuits were brought by Israeli television and film producers and suppliers against the Doe defendants who operate the websites. Each of the three judgments awarded damages of $7.65 million. TorrentFreak outlined the solutions in an article on Monday.
The orders also contain permanent injunctions against the defendants themselves and other types of companies that have provided services to the defendants or may do so in the future. This includes companies like Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Google and Namecheap.
In all three cases, none of the defendants responded to the complaints or appeared in court, the judge’s rulings said. “Defendants have gone to great lengths to conceal themselves and their ill-gotten gains from the disclosure of Plaintiffs and this court, including by using multiple false identities and addresses associated with their operations and intentionally deceptive contact information for the infringing website “, the decisions say.
