Dish Sues to Halt ‘Illicit Streaming Service’ in S.C. From Stealing Its Content

Dish Network and Sling TV brought suit Tuesday against Sentry, a Hilton Head, South Carolina, entity, and its owner, Michael Graziano, for violations of the anti-trafficking provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Their complaint (docket 9:23-cv-05074) in U.S. District Court for South Carolina in Beaufort alleges Sentry and Graziano profit from the sale of an “illicit streaming service” called Tanggula, that captures and retransmits Dish and Sling content without authorization by “circumventing” Dish’s security measures. Dish’s live channels, whether intended for Sling subscribers or Dish Anywhere customers, “are transmitted over the internet using the same Sling streaming platform,” said the complaint. Sentry and Graziano are trafficking in the Tanggula internet streaming service through two of their websites, alltvboxes.com and elitetv2023.com, it said. When we tried Wednesday to access those sites, we got a message that both were offline. Undercover purchases of the service made from those websites show Graziano is operating the websites “and processing the payments through his company Sentry,” it said. Tanggula sells for a one-time cost of $349-$499, depending on the hardware that the user selects, it said. Tanggula is trumpeted as offering thousands of live channels, sports programs, movies and adult content, it said. Dish and Sling channels were transmitted without authorization to users who bought the Tanggula service from Sentry and Graziano, said the complaint. “Identifiers” that are unique to Dish internet transmissions of the channels “were detected when conducting a technical analysis of the corresponding channels” on Tanggula, thereby confirming that channels transmitted on the service originated from Dish and Sling, it said. The Sling logo was also observed on one Tanggula channel, further demonstrating that Dish and Sling channels were used to “seed” the service “with unauthorized content,” it said. The channels are retransmitted to Tanggula users by circumventing the Widevine digital rights management platform that controls content access for legitimate Dish and Sling customers, it said. The complaint seeks a permanent injunction to enjoin Sentry and Graziano from the unlawful conduct, plus an award of damages together with the profits attributable to the unlawful conduct. It also seeks an order transferring to Dish and Sling all domain names and websites Sentry and Graziano used in connection with the Tanggula service. Efforts to reach Graziano for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.