Dish officially announced its lawsuit against alleged content pirates Spider-TV and Tiger Start today. The lawsuit charges both companies with illegally rebroadcasting its Arabic-language channels.
As previously reported, Spider-TV and Tiger Star sell set-top boxes to customers in the United States.
The Dish lawsuit claims that Spider-TV’s and Tiger Star’s boxes accept retransmitted video streams of hundreds of Arabic-language channels, including MBC and Al Jazeera Arabic News.
“We feel it is our responsibility to ensure the channels and shows we pay to carry exclusively are not pirated and sold illegally,” said Dish’s top lawyer Timothy Messner.
Dish wrote to Spider TV, Tiger Star and their internet service providers more than one hundred times, according to Messner.
“Despite our best efforts to ask both Spider-TV and Tiger Star voluntarily to cease transmitting the channels without authorization,” Messner said, “they have continued to distribute the content, leaving us no course but legal action.”
Dish and Arabic Programming
Dish has exclusive rights to air dozens of channels from Arab-speaking countries thought its satellite service and via its skinny bundle video service, Sling TV.
Arab-speaking subscribers to Sling TV can add the Arab Mosaic expansion pack. The expansion costs
$40 a month
and provides more than 122 extra channels.
Chris Casper is a former tech industry product manager who escaped from California for New Mexico. Now he writes about science and tech while searching for the perfect green chile sauce.
