Broadcaster Wins Broad US Blocking Injunction Covering Pirate Sites That Don't Exist Yet
(Thursday August 06, 2026 @11:00AM (BeauHD)
from the future-infringers-beware dept.)
- Reference: 0184875742
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/08/06/0444235/broadcaster-wins-broad-us-blocking-injunction-covering-pirate-sites-that-dont-exist-yet
- Source link:
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak:
> Mexican broadcaster TelevisaUnivision (TU) has [1]obtained (PDF) one of the broadest anti-piracy injunctions ever issued by a U.S. federal court. After initially targeting five pirate IPTV streaming operations, the case [2]expanded to cover well over 500 domain names , requiring intermediaries including Cloudflare, GitHub, and a Mexican bank to comply. In addition, the injunction also covers pirate services and content that hasn't been created yet. [...] The case was relatively targeted, naming the IPTV services Thunder TV, Sunset TV, Pop TV, Kaelus TV, and Tele Latino, as well as their alleged operators. The broadcaster argued that these pirate IPTV services threatened its business. TU holds the World Cup rights for sixteen Latin American territories, and its license with FIFA requires it to keep the Mexican broadcast signal from reaching the United States. The pirate services, it argued, put it in breach of that contract, exposing it to "termination and forfeiture of hundreds of millions of dollars in payments." To stop this immediate threat, the company requested a temporary restraining order, hoping to shut down the IPTV services effective immediately.
>
> [...] Judge Kathleen Williams granted the [3]temporary restraining order (PDF) on June 5, one day after the case was filed, without hearing from any of the defendants. The initial order prohibited the defendants from infringing TU's own copyrighted works, which include telenovelas and other programming, and from using its trademarks, including all content linked to its licensed World Cup broadcast. Importantly, the order also targeted third parties acting "in active concert," including ISPs, hosts, CDNs, domain registrars, registries, app stores, ad networks, social platforms, search engines, and payment processors. These were ordered, on TU's request and with notice, to disable the listed domains and IP addresses and unmask whoever was behind them. [...]
>
> While the injunction is noteworthy for many reasons, the most striking feature is that it's specifically written to include things that don't yet exist. That starts with the content it protects. The order isn't limited to TU's current catalog or the World Cup rights, it covers the infringement of "any copyrighted works or broadcasts that Plaintiffs may in the future produce, license, or acquire rights to transmit." In other words, it covers future copyrights that did not exist when the order was signed. The same applies to the pirate services themselves. The injunction defines its target as the named IPTV operations "and any comparable system," whether "currently in existence or developed in the future," and it applies "regardless of the branding, domain name, or technical configuration used."
[1] https://torrentfreak.com/images/tu-injunction.pdf
[2] https://torrentfreak.com/broadcaster-wins-broad-u-s-blocking-injunction-covering-pirate-sites-that-dont-exist-yet/
[3] https://torrentfreak.com/images/tu-tro.pdf
> Mexican broadcaster TelevisaUnivision (TU) has [1]obtained (PDF) one of the broadest anti-piracy injunctions ever issued by a U.S. federal court. After initially targeting five pirate IPTV streaming operations, the case [2]expanded to cover well over 500 domain names , requiring intermediaries including Cloudflare, GitHub, and a Mexican bank to comply. In addition, the injunction also covers pirate services and content that hasn't been created yet. [...] The case was relatively targeted, naming the IPTV services Thunder TV, Sunset TV, Pop TV, Kaelus TV, and Tele Latino, as well as their alleged operators. The broadcaster argued that these pirate IPTV services threatened its business. TU holds the World Cup rights for sixteen Latin American territories, and its license with FIFA requires it to keep the Mexican broadcast signal from reaching the United States. The pirate services, it argued, put it in breach of that contract, exposing it to "termination and forfeiture of hundreds of millions of dollars in payments." To stop this immediate threat, the company requested a temporary restraining order, hoping to shut down the IPTV services effective immediately.
>
> [...] Judge Kathleen Williams granted the [3]temporary restraining order (PDF) on June 5, one day after the case was filed, without hearing from any of the defendants. The initial order prohibited the defendants from infringing TU's own copyrighted works, which include telenovelas and other programming, and from using its trademarks, including all content linked to its licensed World Cup broadcast. Importantly, the order also targeted third parties acting "in active concert," including ISPs, hosts, CDNs, domain registrars, registries, app stores, ad networks, social platforms, search engines, and payment processors. These were ordered, on TU's request and with notice, to disable the listed domains and IP addresses and unmask whoever was behind them. [...]
>
> While the injunction is noteworthy for many reasons, the most striking feature is that it's specifically written to include things that don't yet exist. That starts with the content it protects. The order isn't limited to TU's current catalog or the World Cup rights, it covers the infringement of "any copyrighted works or broadcasts that Plaintiffs may in the future produce, license, or acquire rights to transmit." In other words, it covers future copyrights that did not exist when the order was signed. The same applies to the pirate services themselves. The injunction defines its target as the named IPTV operations "and any comparable system," whether "currently in existence or developed in the future," and it applies "regardless of the branding, domain name, or technical configuration used."
[1] https://torrentfreak.com/images/tu-injunction.pdf
[2] https://torrentfreak.com/broadcaster-wins-broad-u-s-blocking-injunction-covering-pirate-sites-that-dont-exist-yet/
[3] https://torrentfreak.com/images/tu-tro.pdf
RIAAA and MPAA be like (Score:2)
by Rujiel ( 1632063 )
"Why the fuck didn't I think of that?!"
Re: (Score:2)
by Rujiel ( 1632063 )
And what kind of things do you think europeans were doing to their enemies or for sport up to the 1500s?
Contract with FIFA? (Score:2)
by LainTouko ( 926420 )
Isn't there something fundamentally mad about a contract which requires a court to order people who aren't party to the contract to do something? "Make best efforts to prevent..." is something which could sensibly be part of a contract, but that wouldn't be relevant to a court action like this beyond explaining the motivation.
Court rules piracy is illegal (Score:2)
by kwelch007 ( 197081 )
Requires service providers block illegal operations. Why is this "news"?
Seems overly broad (Score:2)
Anyone else think this is problematic?
Re: (Score:3)
At face value, very much so. I'm not going to panic until the next decade of appeals plays out, though.
This first round was against defendants who didn't even bother showing up to court (and let's be honest, there really wasn't any viable defense they could have offered here). Thanks to this overly broad injunction, the deep pockets of every ISP and cloud hosting provider in the US now has standing to get involved - And they will , since the precedent this sets could cost them real money in the future.