ABS-CBN Files $4M Lawsuit against Anthony Brown and 1700 Cuts Technology for Selling Pirated Set-top Boxes Online, Promoting them on Facebook

Leading Filipino media and entertainment company ABS-CBN has filed a complaint in U.S. Federal Court in the Southern District of Texas against Anthony Brown and 1700 Cuts Technology seeking damages in excess of $4 million for allegedly pirating ABS-CBN’s content and trademark infringement.  

The lawsuit alleges that Texas local resident Brown promoted and sold modified illegal set-top boxes via various Facebook.com pages operated by Brown and 1700 Cuts Technology that enabled buyers to access ABS-CBN’s live programming without paying the appropriate fees for such services. The Facebook pages used to promote the illegal set-top boxes included two personal profile pages and a business page for “Lifeforgreatness”.

“Beware of these operations that are not licensed or affiliated in any way with ABS-CBN,” warned ABS-CBN AVP & Head of Global Anti-Piracy Elisha Lawrence. “We will continue to protect customers by shutting these operations down. The only genuine ABS-CBN internet subscription services are TFC on cable and satellite, IPTV and TFC.tv.”

“We remain steadfast in protecting the content from ABS-CBN’s team of hardworking creative and technical people who need to be rightfully acknowledged and compensated for their work,” said ABS-CBN Managing Director for North and Latin America Jun Del Rosario.

Del Rosario did not mince words about the pirates. “What these pirates do is literally rob from this ecosystem of content creators, pretend to own the content, and scam customers by making money off that content. ABS-CBN is committed to stopping them and bringing them to justice,” he added.

ABS-CBN is represented by Steven Abbott and Stephen M. Gaffigan and Christine Daley of Stephen M. Gaffigan, P.A.