A site managed by the pirates offered more television episodes than Netflix and Amazon Prime, the DOJ said.
Final judgments for five men accused of operating “one of the largest illegal television streaming services” in the United States were issued on Monday, with the individuals having already been sentenced to probation and prison terms of up to 84 months, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a July 22 statement.
Defendants in the case operated Jetflicks, a subscription-based site that allowed users to stream or, at times, download copyrighted content, with the service never having secured permission from the copyright holders, according to the DOJ.
They used automation to scour sites hosting pirated content, downloaded it, processed and stored it, and eventually made it available “to tens of thousands of paid subscribers” across the United States, said the department. Episodes of popular shows were often made available for streaming or download a day after their original airing date.
“At one point, Jetflicks claimed to have 183,285 different television episodes, significantly more than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Amazon Prime, or any other licensed streaming service,” it said.
“This was the largest internet piracy case—as measured by the estimated total infringement amount and total number of infringements—ever to go to trial as well as the first illegal streaming case ever to go to trial.”
According to the DOJ, the defendants’ conduct harmed every major copyright owner of a television program in America, with owners losing millions of dollars.
Defendants in the case are Kristopher Lee Dallmann, 42; Peter H. Huber, 67; Jared Edward Jaurequi, also known as Jared Edwards, 44; Felipe Garcia, 43; and Douglas M. Courson, 65. All were from Las Vegas, Nevada, with one being a German citizen.
