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.
Netflix, Amazon & Hollywood Sue American IPTV Operator
To curb this unauthorized activity, several members of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) filed a lawsuit against the alleged operator of Outer Limits IPTV. Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Disney, Paramount, and other major Hollywood studios alleged widespread copyright infringement.
The complaint, filed in a California federal court, identified Murrieta resident Zachary DeBarr as the owner of Outer Limits. The ‘pirate’ service reportedly offered access to over 4,000 live channels and a VOD library of more than 13,000 movie titles and over 3,000 TV series.
DeBarr allegedly promoted the IPTV service through his iTrustStream YouTube channel, which according to the plaintiffs had 100,000 subscribers. DeBarr’s company, iLockSports LLC, was also named as a defendant.
The studios listed a long history of infringing actions, dating back to 2017. The defendant allegedly started by selling Firesticks that had been modified to provide access to pirated content. He later moved on to reselling pirate IPTV subscriptions and, more recently, launched his own pirate IPTV service.
“DeBarr makes money by selling subscriptions to his Infringing Service directly to the public, but he pays nothing to Plaintiffs for the copyrighted works he exploits,” the complaint alleged.
Studios Request Default Judgment
The Outer Limits IPTV service went dark shortly after the lawsuit was filed. However, despite these serious allegations, the defendant did not appear in court to defend himself, and neither did his company. This prompted the rightsholders to file a motion for default judgment.
The plaintiffs argued that DeBarr engaged in willful copyright infringement, requesting maximum statutory damages of $150,000 for each of the 100 copyrighted works listed in the complaint, $15 million in total.
In addition, the Hollywood studios requested a permanent injunction to stop future infringement and sought to take control of the outerlimitsiptv.com and outerlimitshosting.net domains. An injunction was needed, they argued, as DeBarr might continue his infringing activities in the future.
“While it appears the Infringing Service is no longer operational, based on my experience investigating copyright infringers, DeBarr is very likely to engage in infringing conduct again, especially given his long history of piracy,” MPA’s Bryan Willett wrote in a declaration to the court.
$15 Million in Damages
In an order issued on August 4, 2025, Judge Josephine Staton of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California sided with the studios, awarding the full $15 million in damages.
“The Court finds the requested amount of statutory damages reasonable in light of the seriousness of Defendants’ infringement and the harm it caused. The nature and scope of Defendants’ conduct indicates that they willfully engaged in egregious copyright infringement on a massive scale,” the order reads.
Judge Staton mentions that DeBarr initially shut down his operation in 2020 in response to a cease-and-desist notice, only to relaunch in 2021 while ignoring further communication from rightsholders. This underscores that his actions were willful.
In addition to the massive damages award, Judge Staton also granted a permanent injunction prohibiting DeBarr from infringing the studios’ copyrights moving forward, citing a significant threat of recidivism. The defendant must also hand over his domain names to the plaintiffs.
“Defendants’ non-appearance in this case, combined with Defendants’ history of willful infringement, convince the Court that there is a significant threat of future infringement,” Judge Staton concludes.
This judgment marks another victory for the studios in their ongoing fight against piracy. While taking one service offline doesn’t do much to limit pirate offerings, they hope that the multi-million dollar judgment, together with other verdicts, will send a deterrent message to other operators.
Earlier this year, many of the same studios filed a similar complaint at a federal court in Pennsylvania. This case targets Mechanicsburg resident Brandon Weibley, the alleged operator of several commercial IPTV services including ‘Shrugs’ and ‘Zing’. The case remains pending.
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Update: Judge Staton agreed that an award of attorneys’ fees was warranted. However, she did not approve the initially requested $303,600 calculated under the local rule’s schedule. After billing records were provided, an order for a total of $206,293 in fees was granted today.
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A copy of the $15 million default judgment against DeBarr, issued by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, is available here (civil minutes, pdf)
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
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