Pirate streaming apps and unauthorized IPTV services have continued to gain popularity worldwide.
This is also the case in Chile, where there’s no shortage of options. This includes brands such as MagisTV, FlujoTV, and, XuperTV, which are popular throughout many countries in the region.
These services are a thorn in the side of rightsholders, including the American Hollywood giant Warner Bros. Entertainment, which filed a formal complaint. This effort paid off in February, when Chile’s Department of Telecommunications issued a dynamic blocking order, requiring ISPs to block domains linked to these pirate brands.
Warner Bros. Raises the Stakes
While the blocking action sorted some effect, the IPTV problem remained. This prompted Warner Bros. to raise the stakes by filing a criminal complaint against a company named Streaming Chile SpA that allegedly sells copyright-infringing IPTV subscriptions.
Chilean newspaper La Tercera reports that Warner Bros. accuses the company and its representatives, the 56-year-old Marta Leyton and her son Joaquín Ávila (25) of copyright infringement and computer fraud.
The complaint mentions that IPTV services are widely adopted. While some of these streaming services operate legally, many operate without permission of rightsholders.
“Alongside the growth of a legal IPTV service industry, an illegal industry of unauthorized IPTV service providers has grown alarmingly. These providers offer their clients pay television services via the internet, providing them with access to various content (channels),” the complaint alleges.
Warner Bros. is represented by attorney Daniel Steinmetz, who noted that illegal IPTV services often rebroadcast legal streams without permission from rightsholder, bypassing copyright protections.
Several Linked IPTV Services
TorrentFreak has not seen a copy of the complaint, and the available reporting does not identify any associated URLs. However, the website streaming-chile.net notes in the its footer that it is owned by Streaming Chile SpA, which fits the picture.
The website in question mentions that the operation serves more than 35,000 customers worldwide. The same company, which also offers reseller services, is linked to other streaming platforms such as mejoriptv.net, maxtv.cl, and plandetv.cl.
As seen above, these IPTV services are also mentioned in the “our customers say” section on the main website. The Trustpilot page has less favorable reviews.
Part of a Broader Crackdown
Warner Bros. referral is part of a broader regional push against IPTV piracy. In February, for example, an Argentine court expanded the crackdown on pirate IPTV services by blocking more than 70 domains while ordering Google to disable sideloaded Android apps.
In Chile, the criminal referral against Streaming Chile SpA stands out because it targets a company and its representative by name, under criminal law rather than a civil procedure.
The Warner Bros. complaint is also the first known Chilean case to invoke the Ley de Delitos Económicos (Economic Crimes Law). Enacted in 2023, the law allows courts to order confiscation of all profits derived from criminal conduct. In addition, it imposes fines that scale with the defendant’s income, well beyond the penalties available under standard copyright law alone.
For now, the criminal complaint is at an early investigative stage. No arrests have been reported, and, as far as we can see, the IPTV services that we could link to the company remain online.
