Reuters
STOCKHOLM
A Swedish court has ordered a bankrupt Arabic internet TV company to pay $24 million in damages for distributing content, including English Premier League soccer without permission.
The Stockholm district court ordered the Sweden-based Advanced TV Network (ATN), which distributes Arabic-language content over the internet, to pay 194.8 million Swedish crowns in damages to Qatar's beIN Sports and 14.6 million Swedish crowns to Albanian TV group DigitAlb.
"It is, according to the court's opinion, shown beyond reasonable doubt that ATN at no time ... had the rights to broadcast the beIN channels in question," the court said in a verdict dated June 29 and seen by Reuters.
The Stockholm court also sentenced ATN owner Hamid al Hamid, 58, to two and a half years in prison, while his son Ahmed and another business associate were sentenced to one year each.
All three were found guilty of charges including misuse of decoding information and copyright violations.