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By John Ogunsemore
Five men – Kristopher Dallmann, Douglas Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Jaurequi, and Peter Huber – have been convicted by a federal grand jury in Las Vegas, Nevada for operating Jetflicks, one of the largest unauthorised streaming services in the United States.
The US Department of Justice disclosed this in a statement published on its website on Thursday, June 20.
Prosecutors said Jetflicks generated millions of dollars in subscription revenue while causing substantial harm to television programme copyright owners.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, prosecutors told jurors in the US District Court for the District of Nevada that beginning as early as 2007, the convicts operated an online subscription-based streaming service known as Jetflicks which used computer scripts to scrape pirate websites, downloading illegal copies of copyrighted materials and then hosting them on the Jetflicks servers.
The prosecutors said the group reproduced hundreds of thousands of copyrighted television iepisodes without authorisation, amassing a catalogue larger than the combined catalogues of Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, and Amazon Prime.
The convicts were said to have made millions of dollars streaming and distributing this catalogue of stolen content to tens of thousands of paid subscribers.
After a 15-day trial, the jury convicted Dallman, Courson, Garcia, Jaurequi, and Huber of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.
The jury also convicted Dallmann of two counts of money laundering by concealment and three counts of misdemeanour criminal copyright infringement.
Courson, Garcia, Jaurequi, and Huber each face a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and Dallmann faces a maximum penalty of 48 years in prison.
A sentencing date has not yet been set.
