Foxtel Welcomes Conviction and Sentencing of Subscription TV Pirate

Haidar Majid Salam Al Baghdadi, 33 years old, was convicted of criminal offences relating to charges of operating an illegal network that allowed more than 8,000 people across Australia to access Foxtel subscription television broadcasts for free. 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 Irdeto, the world leader in digital platform security. The three organizations uncovered an organized criminal network responsible for committing a wide-range of intellectual property theft of Foxtel services.

Foxtel’s CEO, Peter Tonagh, said, “Foxtel welcomes today’s court ruling and hopes it sends a strong signal that this type of activity is illegal. 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.

Foxtel conducts ongoing investigations into the theft of Foxtel programming and we are proud to work so closely with the AFP and our partners at Irdeto to ensure the full force of the law is applied to protect our content.”

Rory O’Connor, Senior Vice President of Cybersecurity Services at Irdeto, said, “This conviction is another step forward in the global fight against online piracy. 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.”

Foxtel looks forward to continuing work with the rest of the Australian media industry to address the issue of piracy in Australia.