On September 20th, there will be a trial against a man from southern Sweden suspected to have been the administrator behind the IPTV service Dreamhost. The man has registered the service’s domain name and has also moderated the service’s chats and answered questions from customers. The police found information showing that the man had handled payments between his accounts and an account linked to Dreamhost.
The man admitted in questioning that he has helped with certain technical issues and sold individual subscriptions to friends and acquaintances. He claims that he otherwise does not know who is behind the service. The accused man says that he has felt threatened and has therefore performed some tasks for Dreamhost. This has caused him to let his computer be controlled remotely by someone unknown.
The rights holders will request damages caused by the illegal service. Illegal IPTV is a big problem. It affects both the film and television industries as well as society at large. As many as 490,000 Swedish households (11%) pay for illegal IPTV services, according to Mediavision. It generates millions in revenue for criminals and organized crime, which causes significant damage to the rightsholders, and which also leads to reduced tax revenues and lost jobs.
2023-09-22