Discovery, TV4, and Viaplay have filed a lawsuit against several operators to crack down on illegal IPTV services. The lawsuit, filed with the Stockholm District Court, Patent and Market Court on February 27, states that Discovery, TV4, and Viaplay are suing the Swedish telecom companies Telia, Telenor, Tele2, and Hi3G Access AB.
The TV companies claim that these operators are enabling illegal IPTV services to access their copyrighted content. According to the lawsuit, subscribers to these internet providers have been able to connect to the illegal IPTV service Nordic One/N1's domains via their internet connections, thereby gaining unauthorized access to retransmissions of content from the TV companies.
Nordic One/N1 is described as one of the largest criminal entities in Sweden and the Nordic region in relation to illegal IPTV. The service hijacks television broadcasts from TV companies and distributors, then rebroadcasts them to the public for a fee via its own servers—without the consent of the rights holders.
"In light of this, it can be concluded that the internet providers have contributed to Nordic One/N1’s infringement of the rights holders' respective signal rights," the lawsuit states.
Discovery, TV4, and Viaplay are seeking a court order to prohibit internet service providers from facilitating the illegal use of their content. In other words, operators should be required to pay a specified sum if they violate the ban. The TV companies argue that the operators are partly responsible, meaning they are facilitating copyright infringement by failing to take action.
The widespread use of illegal TV services poses a major challenge for the Swedish media market. A growing number of households are subscribing to so-called illegal IPTV services, which provide unauthorized TV access via the internet. Mediavision's data shows that at the end of 2024, over 700,000 households in Sweden were paying for such services—a new record and a significant increase compared to spring 2024.
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