‘Notorious’ Pirate IPTV Service MagisTV Applies for US Trademark and Rebrands

Pirate streaming apps and unauthorized IPTV services have gained popularity globally in recent years.

Latin America is no exception to this trend but unlike other regions, one pirate streaming brand clearly stands out, MagisTV.

The MagisTV name is used by dozens of websites, many of which are reseller platforms. While some of these might be related, the name is also used by unrelated entities, simply because the brand has become synonymous for pirate IPTV.

A Notorious Market

Rightsholders worldwide are not pleased with the brand’s dominance and have worked hard to counter it. The Motion Picture Association and ACE have targeted MagisTV services for several years and local copyright holders have done the same.

This resulted in several referrals that reportedly resulted in criminal investigations in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. In addition, MagisTV-related websites have been blocked in several countries too.

Last week, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative elevated the MagisTV concerns once again by adding the brand to its latest list of notorious piracy markets.

“MagisTV is one of the world’s most popular IPTV services and operates primarily in Latin America. The service provides unauthorized access to live sports streams, television channels, and on-demand movies and television shows to its customers for a monthly subscription,” USTR wrote.

U.S. Trademark Application

It’s clear that the brand’s popularity comes with both threats and opportunities. To seize the latter, Chinese MagisTV-linked companies reportedly applied for related trademarks in several countries, including Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, and Uruguay.

These applications have met resistance in some instances. In Ecuador, for example, the local football league LigaPro teamed up with Paramount Pictures and DIRECTV to successfully protest a trademark application.

In Ecuador, the Chinese company ‘Shenzhen Geshan Technology’ applied for the trademark. A company from the same region, ‘Shenzhen Huiyi Electronics’, recently did the same at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The application passed the first hurdle, as shown above, and a notice of allowance was sent to the registrant. However, there is still an opportunity for third-parties to object to the application. Considering the fierce opposition in Ecuador, there will likely be protests in the U.S. too.

MagisTV -> Flujo TV

Whether a trademark battle is needed at this point is questionable. More recently, several popular MagisTV services have decided to rebrand to ‘Flujo TV’ (Flow TV). This includes magistv.la and magistv-venezuela.com, which were both branded a ‘notorious market’ by the USTR.

The rebranding doesn’t appear to be directly related to the USTR listing, as it already started earlier. However, it is clear that the operators of these sites and services are eager to move away from the tainted MagisTV brand.

At the time of writing, many of the major MagisTV services have adopted the “Flujo” name. The reason for the rebranding is unknown. These services don’t care about copyright infringement, so any prospective trademark issues shouldn’t easily scare them either.

Perhaps those involved hope to evade being targeted in ‘dynamic’ domain blocking orders with a new name, at least for a while?

That said, a new name doesn’t make these pirate IPTV services any less ‘infringing’ so, if they continue, we will likely see many “Flujo TV” targeted enforcement efforts going forward.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.