A Sydney man has been convicted for his role in giving more than than 8,000 people across Australia access to Foxtel subscription television broadcasts for free.
Haidar Majid Salam Al Baghdadi, 33 years old, was convicted of criminal offences relating to charges of operating an illegal network that allowed the selling of unauthorized access to Foxtel services. A Sydney court has sentenced Al Baghdadi to serve an 18-month suspended jail term for carrying out the offenses.
The conviction and sentencing are the result of on-going joint antipiracy investigations involving the Australian Federal Police (AFP), Foxtel investigators and content security specialist Irdeto. The three organizations uncovered an organized criminal network responsible for committing a wide range of intellectual property theft of Foxtel services.
“Foxtel welcomes today’s court ruling and hopes it sends a strong signal that this type of activity is illegal,” said Foxtel CEO, Peter Tonagh. “Foxtel takes intellectual property theft very seriously as it severely undermines the creative industry, including every business and individual that works so hard to deliver us the movies, sport, drama and entertainment we love.”
The news comes as more and more piracy-related enforcement actions are being carried out. Earlier in the year, Spanish National Police and Europol raided one of the largest European illegal IPTV streaming businesses, with a focus on hijacked Premier league feeds. Dubbed Operation Casper, eight individuals were arrested for the illegal distribution of 1,000 pay TV channels across two ISPs, through the use of IPTV technology. In all, 12 locations were raided in Spain and Bulgaria over the course of the effort.
“This conviction is another step forward in the global fight against online piracy,” said Rory O’Connor, senior vice president of cybersecurity services at Irdeto. “The seriousness of these crimes should not be underestimated and this result is further proof that piracy will not be tolerated. Partnerships like this play a crucial role in not only detecting these pirate networks, but ensuring that the perpetrators are brought to justice.”