IPTV: Should users be taken to court ? It's becoming clearer

© Sergey Zolkin

The fight against pirate IPTV is clearly intensifying all over the world. In France, rights holders are very angry and are mercilessly tracking down these illegal networks. Especially since millions of Internet users are reportedly turning to these services to get around subscription prices that they consider too high.

In Sweden, the anti-piracy group Rights Alliance is also losing patience. It all started with a fairly classic case. Prosecutions have been initiated against a man suspected of being behind a subscription IPTV service called Ghost Farmer TV.

Prosecuting the fraudsters

Prosecutions have been initiated and the investigation is continuing. If found guilty, he could face a criminal conviction and damages. So far, there is nothing extraordinary, and we have reported on similar cases in the past.

What is newer, however, is that the group that locally represents the interests of local film studios and televisions, as well as international entertainment giants? would also like to target IPTV users.

As reported by the specialist site TorrentFreak, the Rights Alliance highlights a letter written by Swedish parliamentarian Lars Mejern Larsson. The latter questions the Swedish government on the means it intends to implement to combat piracy in the country.

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In this letter addressed to the Ministers of Justice and Culture, he places the responsibility on Internet users who use these services. According to him, those who give money are the first to be blamed: “In a somewhat brutal way, anyone who downloads films illegally contributes to organized economic crime”.

In his response, Gunnar Strömmer, the Minister of Justice, does not currently plan to prosecute users. He believes that time must be allowed to see the effect of the measures previously taken against criminal networks.

Fines, prison, Europe raises its voice

This new affair illustrates in any case to what extent IPTV is today the bête noire of rights holders. Let us recall, for example, that Italy has already opted for fines against fraudsters. The same attempt has also been noticed in Spain, although in this case it is not a government decision.

In France, the debate is also present. The rules are also very strict on this subject. The use of pirate IPTV is punishable by article 321-1 of the Penal Code. The latter characterizes it as receiving stolen goods. Concretely, if you use these illegal services, you risk three years in prison and a maximum fine of 375,000 euros. In fact, no one is considering (fortunately) that these measures will not be applied.

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