MOSCOW, February 29 (RAPSI) – Several Russian TV channels, including state-run Channel One, have filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against a number of broadcasters alleging trademark and copyright infringement, according to court records obtained by RAPSI.

Among the plaintiffs are CJSC CTC Network, CJSC New Channel, CJSC TV Darial, LLC Comedy TV, LLC Rain TV-Channel, LLC Veriselintel, and OJSC Accept.

Actava TV Inc., Goodzone TV, Infomir LLC, Matvil Corp. and personally its CEO Mikhail Gayster, Panorama TV,  Master Call Communications Inc. and its CEO Rouslan Tsoutiev, Master Call Corp. are named as defendants in the case.
The plaintiffs accuse the US broadcasters of “unauthorized interception and re-broadcasts of valuable foreign language television programming over the internet in violation of federal and state law.”

They “hack, capture or otherwise acquire without permission the encrypted signals of the channels and transmit those signals to its servers which in turn stream the wrongfully acquired signals over IPTV Player to paying customers” in the United States, according to the complaint.

Plaintiffs request that the court bar the defendants from “intercepting, broadcasting, re-broadcasting or otherwise displaying Plaintiffs’ Channels and Programming or otherwise infringing upon Plaintiffs’ marks.”