ABS-CBN files $8M lawsuit vs Kissasian and other Sites

ABS-CBN Corporation has filed a lawsuit before the US Federal District Court last Friday, February 17 against video-streaming website kissasian.com over alleged infringement of trademarks and registered copyrights of their 27 television shows and movies.

According to the media network, these efforts are to step up its anti-piracy enforcement this year.

“These pirate sites often victimize our fans when they access these sites and are later attacked by malware which steals their financial and personal data.  We are going after every pirate wherever they live and operate,” ABS-CBN’s Assistant Vice President of Global Anti-Piracy Elisha Lawrence said in a statement.

Last year, they also sued numerous websites streaming their movies and television shows. Among these websites are freepinoychannel.com and pnoytambayantv.com which were penalized to pay $1.18 million in statutory damages. Websites lambingan.to, pinoynetwork.to, and tambaytayo.com were ordered to pay 1.09 million each.

The judge also ordered the defendants to stop advertising, promoting, performing, copying, broadcasting, or distributing ABS-CBN’s copyrighted work, which includes a variety of television programming.

The mentioned websites provided on-demand streaming performances of full-length versions of ABS-CBN television shows and movies through their sites. The media network requested at least $2million in statutory damages per counterfeit trademark and triple the defendants’ profits from the alleged infringement.

As of this writing, kissasian.com has brought down all television dramas and movies from the Philippines. The said news has also gained negative remarks from Filipino fans of kissasian.com claiming that most netizens come to the site to watch Korean dramas and other Asian dramas.