A US judge has ruled that six US film and TV studios should receive $51.6 million in damages from IPTV provider Nitro TV.

In the Netherlands, the BREIN Foundation has increasingly targeted IPTV providers in recent years. Overseas pirate fighters are also doing everything they can to bring this type of subscription service to its knees. Torrentfreak reports that Columbia Pictures, Paramount, Disney Enterprises, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Amazon Content Services and three Universal-owned companies have won a lawsuit against the operators of the now defunct IPTV service Nitro TV.

Nitro TV must pay $51.6 million in damages. The defendants would also owe nearly $2 million in interest after the verdict.

According to Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, the defendants Nitro Alejandro, Anna, Martha and Osvaldo Galindo, Richard Horsten (Rik de Groot), Raul Orellana (YouTuber Touchtone) and his company Firestream LLC, are jointly and severally liable for the legal damages of $51,600,000. This reflects an award of the legal maximum of $150,000 per work for Nitro’s willful infringement of the 344 representative works identified by plaintiffs.

The case against the operators of Nitro TV started 2.5 years ago. The seven US companies filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in a California district court. At stake was the Nitro TV subscription packages where thousands of live and TV channels were available in the United States and abroad. Until a few years ago, Nitro TV was a household name in the world of IPTV providers worldwide.