A California federal judge just handed Amazon a $6 million victory against a network of websites selling pirated DVDs of Prime Video exclusives.

The defendants, believed to operate out of China, never bothered showing up to court. And here’s the kicker: Amazon will almost certainly never see a single dollar from this judgment.

The lawsuit dates back to 2023, when Amazon targeted at least eight websites selling counterfeit discs of shows like The Rings of Power, The Boys, and Clarkson’s Farm.

Since Amazon has never released some of these series on physical media, the pirated nature of the discs was obvious. Investigators made over twenty test purchases, and the Motion Picture Association confirmed every single disc was fake.

A $6 Million Judgment Nobody Will Pay

Judge Fernando Aenlle-Rocha awarded $3,075,000 for copyright infringement covering 78 episodes across seven TV series. On top of that, another $3 million was granted for willful trademark violations.

Three defendants, DVD Trade Int. Ltd, Media Wholesale UK, and an individual named Yangchun Zhang, are all jointly liable for the full amount.

But let’s be honest here. These defendants are based in China. They ignored the lawsuit entirely. Some of their domains went dark after being served, only to pop back up under new addresses.

At the time of this writing, at least two DVD pirate websites remain active. One of them being ‘DVDShelf’ with an Australian domain. Collecting millions from people who refuse to acknowledge a U.S. court is a fantasy.

The real prize for Amazon is the broad injunction. Registrars like GoDaddy must transfer all eight domain names to Amazon. Hosting providers are ordered to suspend services and lock down the sites.

The judge also left the door open for future domains to be added if Amazon can prove they belong to the same operation. Some comments on this Reddit thread talked about the potential fallout for GoDaddy and other hosting providers.

Final Thoughts

Amazon’s $6 million win looks impressive on paper, but foreign defendants who skip court rarely pay a cent. The piracy websites in question are still running at the time of this writing.

Meanwhile, the company keeps hiking Prime Video prices while spending serious legal resources chasing sellers of a dying format.

Amazon should also consider investing in its Fire TV platform, which continues to lose market share to Google TV/Android TV boxes after their crackdown on third-party streaming apps.

Perhaps those anti-piracy dollars would serve customers better if redirected toward improving products and keeping subscription costs affordable.

For more details on this story, refer to the court documentation (PDF) and the report from TorrentFreak.

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