Back in June, you may remember us breaking the news that Norfolk and Suffolk Police had successfully taken down one of the largest IPTV providers in the UK. Global Entertainment (a.k.a. GE Hosting) was selling subscriptions to thousands of users across the globe, giving them illegal access to streams that showed content such as Premier League football games, Movies and Pay Per View events.
Normally, you would have to pay a subscription to receive such services to registered TV providers in the UK, who had paid for licencing fees to exclusively air certain channels and events. However, Global saw themselves as a bit of a Robin Hood outfit in that they provided the same services at a fraction of the cost.
Many providers such as Sky would argue it is these types of criminal organisations result in them having to charge higher prices to their customers for their services. Personally, I disagree, it’s the ludicrous amounts of money they offer up to show sporting events, like when BT paid £1.2bn to have the rights to show Champions League football. But I’m not an expert, that’s just a matter of opinion.
Anyway, today it seems there has been another development in the case in which the task force responsible for the takedown of the IPTV service, sent out “cease and desist” notices out to the former GE Users. The letter came in the form of an email which you can see below from our sources on reddit:
The letter itself states that the user’s details have been gathered in the operation, and they are now asked to cease and desist using the IPTV service and others like it. Although, having shut down the service, no customers of Global’s would still be using it. You can read the full content of the letter below, again, sourced from reddit:
The letter states it is not taking action against the individuals who have received it, but if they are caught using illegal IPTV services, they will be prosecuted, mentioning the maximum sentence of up to 5 years imprisonment. However, we find it highly unlikely the police have more information that the emails of the users, as these have been suggested to simply be usernames for people’s accounts with Global. Many of which will be fake and the remaining emails will likely be used for spam or other illegal activities and set up under false names.
Either way, this will no doubt come as a shock to those who have received it. And maybe now they’ll think twice before subscribing to an IPTV service again.
We’ll bring more developments about the case as they unfold.
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