May 3, 2022 – The U.S. District Court for the Southern District Of New York has issued three Default Judgments and Permanent Injunction Orders in three related copyright infringement lawsuits.[1] The SDNY’s decision is noteworthy because the injunction purportedly applies to every ISP that provides service within the U.S.[2]

The “Plaintiffs are movie, television, sports and news content producers and providers in Israel, providing copyrighted programming to hundreds of thousands of subscribers throughout Israel, by cable or satellite broadcasting and online through their own platforms.” The copyrighted content at issue is mostly (entirely?) Hebrew language TV shows and movies, nearly all of which is licensed for distribution in Israel. Apparently, some of the content also is licensed for the U.S.

According to the Default Judgments, the Defendants “have been rebroadcasting and streaming Plaintiffs' original content, broadcasting channels and TV services” illegally through websites, services, or applications. These illegal sites are located at or link to:

www.Israeli-tv.com
www.Sdarot.tv
www.Israel.TV

The Default Judgments find the Defendants “liable for direct, vicarious and contributory copyright infringement because the Website is rebroadcasting and streaming, in the United States, Hebrew-language television and online channels and content owned by Plaintiffs, and/or exclusively licensed for broadcasting and streaming in Israel, and because Defendants are circumventing technological measures that effectively control access to Plaintiffs’ Works.” It also finds the Defendants “liable for violating the anti-circumvention provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).”

Damages awarded to the Plaintiffs include statutory damages for each instance of copyright infringement and attorney fees. However, the noteworthy piece of the decision is the scope of the Court’s permanent injunction.

The SDNY’s injunction in each case orders all ISPs listed in Exhibit B to the order, and any other ISPs providing services in the United States, to block access to the Defendants’ websites at any domain address known today or to be used in the future by the Defendants by any technological means available on the ISPs’ systems. (Page 6 of each Default Judgment and Permanent Injunction Order) That’s right - block these sites, block any of their future sites, and just make it happen.

All U.S. ISPs are required by the injunctions to divert their users’ attempts to access the Defendants’ sites to a landing page operated and controlled by the Plaintiffs. The landing page is can be reached at the following:

Domain: zira-usa-11024.org

IP Address: 206.41.119.64.

Exhibit B contains nine pages listing 96 U.S. ISPs. However, as stated above, the list in Exhibit B is not exhaustive, as the Court claims the injunction applies to every U.S. ISP.

Further, the injunction permanently prohibits third parties, such as web hosting providers, CDN providers, VPNs, payment processors, and others from providing services to the Defendants’ websites. Exhibit C to the Court’s order provides a non-exhaustive list of third parties covered by the injunction.

Since this is a default judgment, it won’t be overturned by an appellate court. The John or Jane Doe individuals running these pirate streaming sites didn’t bother to defend themselves and they don’t want to be found. Based on the details of the order, they are likely in Israel anyway, and besides, if you’re running a pirate site, you probably have little regard for U.S. copyright law.

That being said, the far-reaching injunction is precarious at best because the Court has not explained how it believes it may exercise jurisdiction over every U.S. ISP based on the facts of this lawsuit. The Default Judgments and Permanent Injunction Orders do not discuss evidence that was filed with the Court showing actual U.S. consumers accessed these sites with specific IP addresses owned by specific ISPS. Maybe (probably) there are documents in the docket detailing all of this. At any rate, there were 96 ISPs listed on the Court’s order, so maybe the Plaintiffs submitted evidence showing broadband subscribers from those ISPs accessed the pirated sites at some point.

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[1] United King Film Distribution LTD, et al. v. Does 1-10, d/b/a Israeli-tv.com, 21 Civ. 11025 (KPF), Default Judgment And Permanent Injunction Order (Apr. 26, 2022), https://casetext.com/case/united-king-film-distribution-ltd-v-does-1; United King Film Distribution LTD, et al. v. Does 1-10, d/b/a Sdarot.com, 21 Civ. 11026 (KPF), Default Judgment And Permanent Injunction Order (Apr. 26, 2022); United King Film Distribution LTD, et al. v. Does 1-10, d/b/a Israel.TV, 21 Civ. 11024 (KPF), Default Judgment And Permanent Injunction Order (Apr. 26, 2022).

[2] The Court’s decisions were first reported by torrentfreak.com and arstechnica.com.