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.

Sentry and its owner, Michael Graziano, urge the U.S. District Court for South Carolina in Beaufort to deny the Dish Network and Sling TV Oct. 10 motion for a preliminary injunction barring the defendants from violations of the anti-trafficking provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and to freeze their assets, said their opposition Friday (docket 9:23-cv-05074). Dish and Sling allege 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 (see 2310110050). Dish and Sling are unlikely to suffer irreparable harm as a result of the defendants’ actions, said their opposition. Dish and Sling haven’t even attempted to explain why freezing the defendants’ assets is “necessary, warranted or just,” it said. Dish and Sling also are “unlikely to successfully show” that the Tanggula service falls within the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision, “as required to succeed on the merits,” it said.

Defendant OpenAI submitted as supplemental authority Tuesday a statement of recent decision (docket 3:23-cv-03223) from the U.S. District Court for Northern California dismissing similar copyright infringement claims against it involving AI models in Digital Millennial Copyright Act lawsuits in the same court (see 2307200047). OpenAI said the decision was relevant to its motion to dismiss related class actions brought by Sarah Silverman and Paul Tremblay alleging OpenAI infringed their works in developing its AI content. In Andersen v. Stability AI, U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick found that “'it is simply not plausible,’ that every output of a Generative AI model constitutes a derivative work absent ‘substantial similarity’ type allegations,” noted OpenAI’s statement. Orrick said that to state a claim under Section 1202 of the DCMA, "each plaintiff must identify 'the exact type of [copyright management information] included' in their works and 'allege plausible facts' regarding how that CMI was allegedly removed or altered.” The plaintiffs in the Tremblay and Silverman cases allege OpenAI and several of its subsidiaries violated their rights under the DCMA by removing copyright management information (CMI) from their infringed works and redistributing those works via ChatGPT without CMI or with false CMI.

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.

Broadcast Music, Inc. and six music labels sued Nashville-based bar Twin Kegs II and its manager, Todd Rossbach, for unlicensed playback of BMI music, said their Thursday copyright infringement complaint (docket 3:23-cv-01039) in U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee in Nashville. Since September 2020, BMI has contacted defendants over 50 times, by phone, mail and email to tell them of their obligations under the Copyright Act to buy a license for public performance of musical compositions in the BMI library, it said. Communications included cease and desist notices, it said. BMI and Warner-Tamerlane Publishing, Eleksylum Music, No Surrender Music, Combine Music, Painted Desert Music and Sony/ATV Tree Publishing allege the infringement is causing them “great and incalculable damage.” They seek an order enjoining the bar from further infringing their music and to pay statutory damages, plus a reasonable attorney’s fee and costs.

Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) and eight music publishers’ copyright infringement claims against Bonfire Craft Kitchen (see 2307070033) are barred by the fair use doctrine and by the First Amendment, said the Surprise, Arizona, restaurant's Tuesday answer (docket 2:23-cv-01229) to plaintiffs’ July complaint in U.S. District Court for Arizona in Phoenix. One or more of the copyright registrations that the restaurant allegedly infringed is invalid for failure to comply with the requirements set forth in 17 U.S. Code section 102, said the answer. Plaintiffs aren't entitled to injunctive relief because there is no immediate or irreparable damage, and they have an adequate remedy at law, it said. The music publishers “suffered no cognizable damage or injuries" due to the allegations, and they would be “unjustly enriched” if allowed to recover on the complaint, it said. Any alleged copyright infringement by defendants was “innocent and not willful” because they relied in good faith on representations made by karaoke subscription service KaraFun regarding the scope of the licenses to the alleged copyright provided under the KaraFun PRO subscription the restaurant purchased, it said. Plaintiffs’ copyright infringement claims are barred by the doctrines of laches, waiver and unclean hands, and they're estopped from asserting any claim or demand, “if any ever existed,” it said. Bonfire asked the court to render judgment in its favor and to award them attorneys’ fees and legal costs.

Plaintiff Mona Awad dismissed without prejudice her individual copyright infringement claims against OpenAI defendants, said a Friday notice (docket 4:23-cv-03223) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. Awad’s dismissal doesn't affect claims brought by Paul Tremblay or any related matter, including Silverman et al. v. OpenAI, said the notice. Defendants haven’t filed an answer or motion for summary judgment. Awad, an author, along with plaintiff Tremblay, alleged their copyrighted materials were ingested and used to train ChatGPT without their consent.

The Japanese parent of Sony Music Entertainment seeks a Digital Millennium Copyright Act subpoena to compel Cloudflare, a content delivery network services provider, to share information “sufficient to identify the persons infringing its copyrighted works” using Cloudflare services, said its petition (docket 3:23-mc-80204), dated Tuesday and posted Thursday in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. It has come to Sony’s attention that Cloudflare users are infringing six copyrighted works from Sony’s portfolio, and Sony wants Cloudflare to immediately disable access to the infringing works, said the petition. Cloudflare didn't comment.

A dozen plaintiff-appellee record labels and defendant-appellant Tofig Kurbanov agreed to dismissal with prejudice of Kurbanov’s appeal under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 42(b), said their joint stipulation Tuesday (docket 23-1774) in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Each party will bear its own attorneys’ fees, but Kurbanov is responsible for paying any 4th Circuit fees that are due, said the stipulation. Kurbanov was appealing the district court’s February 2022 order awarding the labels nearly $83,000 in statutory damages under the Copyright Act and Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Kurbanov was found in a December 2021 default judgment to have run Flvto.biz, a website capable of “stream-ripping” copyrighted songs and distributing them to tens of millions of subscribers for downloading onto mobile devices. All the activity was done without the labels' permission or authorization, said the default judgment. The 4th Circuit appeal was docketed only as recently as July 26.

Internet service provider Grande Communications, sued by Universal Music Group and other labels for willful contributory infringement, moved (docket 1:17-cv-00365) for approval of a supersedeas bond of $46.9 million issued by U.S. Fire Insurance Co. and for a stay of execution on a Jan. 30 judgment. A Nov. 3 jury verdict in U.S. District Court for Western Texas in Austin awarded UMB and other plaintiffs $46.8 million in damages resulting from Grande’s willful contributory infringement of 1,403 copyrighted. After the court’s judgment, Grande moved for a stay of execution and for waiver of any bond requirement. Plaintiffs opposed, filing a conditional cross-motion for writ of execution in the amount of $46.9 million, reflecting the judgment amount, plus the amount of costs taxed, said the motion. The court denied Grande’s motion and ordered that a writ of execution for $46.9 million would be issued if Grande failed to obtain a corresponding bond within 14 days of its July 25 order (see 2307260048). Because Grande secured a bond from an acceptable surety company in an amount sufficient to satisfy the judgment, plus costs, the court should issue an order approving the bond and staying enforcement of the judgment pending all appellate proceedings, Grande said.