Willow TV Anti-Piracy efforts shuts down illegal websites
Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 11:49 am
received this earlier as a customer from Willow
Willow looking for some free PR and scaring the competition
Careful where you get you steaming subscription from before he left looking at a blank screen
A snapshot of our most recent court filing is at 2011CourtFilingPg1.pdfDear Willow TV customer:
Over the past several years, Willow TV has been closely monitoring the growth of online piracy of live sporting events and we have also been impacted by this illegal activity. However, with the concerted efforts of our own internal anti-piracy team and our top-tier legal counsel, working in close collaborations with private investigators, broadcasters, legal authorities and financial institutions globally, Willow TV has been able to strike decisive blows against the perpetrators of this illegal activity. We truly appreciate the continued patronage of customers like yourselves and would like to take this opportunity to update you on some of the key actions we have been able to take to combat piracy.
After a series of detailed investigations, Willow TV recently filed multiple complaints in the Superior Court of the State of California and in the United States District Court against a number of websites and individuals that were identified as "ring leaders" and repeat infringers of the global copyrights. As part of a series of judgments in favor of Willow TV, the courts also granted our discovery applications, which enabled Willow TV to subpoena the payment processors for these websites.
Armed with these subpoenas, Willow TV was able to take three very critical steps:
* First, we were able to freeze the accounts of the infringing websites across a range of payment processors, including PayPal, Google Checkout, AlertPay, CCBill and a number of others.
* Second, thanks to the subpoena power, we were able to obtain detailed information about the identities of both the account holders (i.e. the owners of the websites) as well as the identities of the people that provide these websites with the business necessary to continue to fund this criminal activity.
* Third, and most importantly, we are now using this identity information to work with authorities in the respective jurisdictions to bring the repeat offenders to justice.
We will continue to update you periodically on our activities in the anti-piracy domain. We would like to reiterate that through our actions, we are now able to track the money trail that funds illegal piracy, both to the perpetrators of the activity as well as to the source of the funds from repeat infringers. There is no anonymity in piracy and Willow TV is committed to bringing these individuals to justice, regardless of where they are located.
Willow looking for some free PR and scaring the competition
Careful where you get you steaming subscription from before he left looking at a blank screen