Foxtel welcomes the sentencing of a Sydney man for his role in the selling of unauthorised access to Foxtel services. Haidar Majid Salam Al Baghdadi, 33 years old, was convicted of criminal offences relating to charges of operating an illegal network that allowed more than 8,000 people across Australia to access Foxtel subscription television broadcasts for free. A Sydney court has sentenced Al Baghdadi to serve an 18-month suspended jail term for carrying out the offenses.

 

The conviction and sentencing are the result of on-going joint antipiracy investigations involving the Australian Federal Police (AFP), Foxtel investigators and Irdeto, the world leader in digital platform security. The three organizations uncovered an organized criminal network responsible for committing a wide-range of intellectual property theft of Foxtel services.

 

Foxtel’s CEO, Peter Tonagh, said, “Foxtel welcomes court ruling and hopes it sends a strong signal that this type of activity is illegal. Foxtel takes intellectual property theft very seriously as it severely undermines the creative industry, including every business and individual that works so hard to deliver us the movies, sport, drama and entertainment we love.