Filipino media giant illustrates how pirate domains can be taken down via US Courts

The Court in the Southern District of Florida entered a default judgment in favor of leading Filipino media and entertainment company, ABS-CBN, and against 21 pirate site operators. The 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 U.S. and abroad. 

Due to the defendants’ 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. Below are the defendants by number and subject domain name: 

Additionally, six of the defendants 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 defendants. 

Moreover, these pirate sites have been ordered to hand over their domain names to ABS-CBN so that they may no longer be used as a source for their infringing activities. If the domains’ current registrars do not comply, ABS-CBN may escalate the order to the controlling registry, which will then be instructed to put the domains on hold and remove them from the TLD zone files. 

At this time, ABS-CBN has succeeded in removing 18 of the domains at issue. 

ABS-CBN Files over $40M Lawsuit vs 40 Pirate Domains in U.S. Federal Court

ABS-CBN, a leading global Filipino media and entertainment company, filed a USD $40-million lawsuit entitled, ABS-CBN v. 123Fullpinoymovieshub.com, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against 40 pirate domains pirating ABS-CBN's content and infringing its copyrights and trademarks.  The Court recently issued a preliminary injunction against these 40 pirate domains to take down the domains with a serving notice. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida is the Federal United States District Court with territorial jurisdiction over the southern part of the state of Florida.

The lawsuit comes as news reports show piracy has made a comeback during the COVID-19 pandemic.  According to a report by TVtechnology.com on how media companies are dealing with piracy in the age of COVID, lockdowns resulted into more breaches of streaming security as a result of higher demand. Criminals were isolating at home as well and likely had more time and inclination to devote to nefarious activities.