The Internet is littered with cheap IPTV services that offer access to a lot of content, for very little money.
These deals often seem too good to be true, and in most cases they are, at least for those who prefer to stay on the right side of the law.
The operators of these services often remain in the shadows, but anti-piracy groups are actively trying to pin them down. For example, members of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) identified Mechanicsburg resident Brandon Weibley as the alleged operator of several commercial IPTV services offering pirated streams.
IPTV Operator Ghosts Hollywood Lawsuit
In a complaint filed in March 2025, Amazon, Netflix, Disney, Paramount, and other major studios accused Weibley of large-scale copyright infringement across a string of IPTV brands.
His alleged activity dates back to 2017, when he registered beastmodebuilds.com and began selling subscriptions to services including Beast Mode Live, BTV, Viking Media, and GreenWing Media. After the studios confronted him in 2023, he moved to a new domain, vonwik.com, and rebranded the operation as ‘Shrugs’ and ‘Zing’.
Weibley was personally served but never answered the complaint or appeared in court. With the defendant absent, the studios requested a default judgment, $9 million in damages, and a permanent injunction.
The services’ public front stayed online through the Vonwik.com domain, even after Weibley was served. That left the rightsholders relying on the court to shut the operation down.
Court Awards $9 Million + Domain Takeover
This week, U.S. District Judge Jennifer Wilson granted the studios’ motion in full. With a sample of 60 copyrighted works at stake, multiplied by the maximum award of $150,000 per infringement, that adds up to a total of $9 million in statutory damages.
The order
The judge found the infringement willful on several grounds. Weibley continued to operate the services after the studios demanded he stop, and simply moved them to a new domain once the rightsholders applied pressure.
In addition to the damages, Judge Wilson also granted a permanent injunction, which prohibits Weibley from operating the six named services or anything substantially similar.
Importantly, the injunction also orders the registrars and registries for the associated domains, beastmodebuilds.com and vonwik.com, to transfer these to a registrar appointed by the studios. In addition, hosting providers are required to suspend the associated sites and lock their content.
Shrugs and Zing (Vonwik.com)
At the time of writing, the permanent injunction has yet to be applied, as Vonwik.com remains online and accessible. Whether the associated IPTV services also remain active is unknown.
Court Applies the New Cox Standard
In addition to the multi-million damages award, the judgment memorandum stands out for how it handles the movie companies’ secondary liability claims.
To hold Weibley liable for contributory infringement and inducement, the court applied the Supreme Court’s recent Cox v. Sony framework. Under Cox, a provider’s mere knowledge that subscribers infringe is not enough. The provider must intend its service to be used for infringement, or the service must be tailored to it.
Wilson navigated that standard carefully. In a footnote, she declined to rest liability on Weibley’s knowledge alone, grounding it instead in inducement, noting that he promoted the services, tried to conceal the purpose of subscriber payments, and rebranded under pressure.
To reach those conclusions, the court leans heavily on a similar IPTV case. Judge Wilson cited the California case against ‘Outer Limits IPTV’, which resulted in a $15 million default judgment last August, throughout her analysis.
It’s Not Over Yet
The Motion Picture Association’s enforcement arm, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) coordinated the legal effort and takes credit for the win.
“We commend Judge Wilson’s ruling holding Weibley accountable for copyright infringement,” says Jesse Martin, the MPA’s Senior VP and Associate General Counsel for Global Litigation and Intermediaries.
ACE’s press release does appear to contain an error, however. Its headline (archived) described Weibley as the operator of “Outer Limits IPTV.” That was a different defendant in a separate lawsuit, one that resulted in a $15 million judgment last year.
Update June 12: After publication, ACE informed TorrentFreak that the headline misidentification was an editing error, which will soon be corrected in its press release. The original wording is preserved in the screenshot and archived link.
ACE’s initial press release
Finally, it’s worth pointing out that this is not a final conclusion of the case, because the claims against ten unnamed ‘Doe’ defendants tied to the two domain names remain pending. The studios have until June 15 to tell the court whether they intend to pursue or drop them.
The $9 million default judgment against Shrugs and Zing operator Weibley is confirmed. Whether the defendant will pay this massive damages amount is uncertain, however, which is why the movie companies tried their best to obtain that permanent injunction, including the domain takeover power.
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A copy of Judge Wilson’s memorandum is available here (pdf) and the accompanying order can be found here (pdf).
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