Dish, Sling Sue to Block ‘Illicit’ Streaming Service Channels4Cheap

Defendants John Magembe and Joyce Berry profit from the sale of an “illicit” streaming service called Beast TV, also known as Channels4Cheap, that captures and retransmits Dish Network and Sling TV content without authorization by circumventing Dish and Sling security measures, alleged their complaint Thursday (docket 4:23-cv-01136) in U.S. District Court for Northern Texas in Dallas. The defendants run their streaming service by selling device codes on the Channels4Cheap.com website that enable a set-top box or other internet-enabled device to access the Dish and Sling servers, said the complaint. The device codes sell for $2 for a 48-hour viewing trial, $15 for a month, $40 for three months, $70 for six months and $120 for 12 months, “depending on the option selected by the user,” it said. The allegations are based on a completed Dish and Sling investigation, “and with the reasonable belief that further investigation and discovery in this action will lead to additional factual support,” it said. The defendants advertise the service on the website as offering more than 4,000 live channels, plus sports packages from around the world and free pay-per-view events, it said. The Widevine digital rights management that Dish and Sling use and the protection it affords “is circumvented using a specially developed computer program that emulates the behavior of a reverse engineered hardware device,” it said. The computer program “tricks” the Widevine DRM server to grant access and provide a channel decryption key “by making the server believe the request originated from a legitimate Widevine supported device that would keep the channel decryption key secured,” it said. The lawsuit alleges violations of the anti-trafficking provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Federal Communications Act. It seeks a permanent injunction, plus actual damages together with the defendants’ profits attributable to their wrongful activity. It also seeks an “accounting” of all profits and other benefits that the defendants received “from the wrongful conduct identified in this complaint.” Efforts to reach the defendants for comment Monday were unsuccessful.