Record pay-TV piracy verdict in Poland

A Polish pirate has been ordered to compensate Canal+ Polska and Cyfrowy Polsat a record amount of over PLN1 million (€223,000) for illegally distributing their pay-TV services.

In addition, the District Court in Wieliczka has sentenced him to one year’s imprisonment, suspended for three years. The court’s judgement is final.

According to Canal+ Polska, the man was arrested in March 2018 in a detached house in the Krakow powiat, where he had built an entire infrastructure for illegal sharing of TV signals. There, the police secured electronic equipment acting as “sharing” servers, set-top boxes and computers. Several dozen subscriber cards were plugged into the server, enabling the reception of payable, encrypted TV, which was then made available to unauthorised persons via the internet.

The organiser of the “sharing” charged fees for providing pay -TV to others, which were much lower than when concluding a legal contract.

During the search, the police found cash in the amount of almost PLN180,000.

More than one suspect was arrested during the course of the investigation and a second man also received a suspended sentence and demand to pay compensation to Canal+ Polska and Cyfrowy Polsat.