Remember the piracy rules folks...
Funny enough the NPA released this yesterday.
MAN SENTENCED AND FINED FOR THEFT OF DSTV CONTENT HE SOLD ILLEGALLY
The Bellville Commercial Crimes Court has sentenced Jordon Lee Mot, to seven years imprisonment, suspended for five years and forced to pay a lump sum into the bank account of the Criminal Asset Recovery Account (Cara), after he was arrested for theft of Multichoice content which he illegally sold. The sentence and fine follow his conviction on seven counts of the prohibition on the manufacture, possession, and advertising of listed equipment. The accused, a sole director of JP Limitless Sa (Pty) Ltd, illegally advertised, possessed purchased and sold listed Android TV boxes and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) which is the property of Multichoice.
Multichoice, who is the complainant, provides pay-television broadcasting services to subscribers, against payment of a prescribed fee for the authorized content. The company distributes copies of cinematographs, tv shows and live sports events in the home entertainment market. It protects the value of the content that is acquired from various local and international content suppliers through broadcasting signals that are encoded, and the subscriber must possess a Multichoice-activated smart card to receive the transmission.
The prosecutor, Adv. Aurelia Harmse informed the court that on 30 July 2019, Jan Andreas, a senior piracy investigator employed by IRDETO, responsible for security and investigation of all piracy-related issues concerning MultiChoice, discovered while conducting online searches that there is a company that is selling Android TV boxes, IPTV subscriptions with over 3 000 channels and over 300 videos on demand.
He immediately contacted the accused and was informed that there is a promotion on an Android TV box, including one month’s IPTV subscription for R60 00. Two years later, on 14 August 2022, he placed an order and was provided with bank details. A day later after depositing the required amount, he visited the address of the accused in Bellville and was welcomed by a lady who showed him the different applications on the Android TV box. He also observed a box full of Android Tv boxes in the house. He took the box home to establish whether it was working. On 20 August 2019, he found that updated South African channels were playing, and all Supersport on the Dstv platform were active and working on the IPTV subscription service.
Adv Harmse told the court that IPTV was at no stage issued with such a DSTV subscription, the accused did not acquire any rights to access or distribute programmmes on the Dstv Platform. A trap was set up and the accused was phoned to provide another Android TV box. On 2 October 2022, he met with the client who paid him R780 for an Android MI TV Stick that was preloaded and required no password or link to connect. He was arrested and police found more Android TV boxes on his premises.
In his plea and sentencing agreement, Mot confessed that he did not acquire any right, or authority to promote, distribute, possess, offer to sell, or sell or enable access to the protected content from Multichoice. After successfully applying for a confiscation order, the accused agreed and paid R60 000 into the Cara account.
Note: The NPA’s media statements are available on the website:
www.npa.gov.za
Issued by:
Eric Ntabazalila
National Prosecuting Authority
Regional Communications Manager
Western Cape
