Back in August, the Department of Justice announced a Grand Jury has indicted eight people for allegedly running a pirate streaming service. The indictments say they ran Jetflix and iStreamItAll out of Las Vegas. These services claimed to offer over 100,000 movies and TV episodes to customers and according to the DOJ claimed to have more customers than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, and Amazon Prime.
According to iStreamItAll’s website, they have plans starting at $19.99 a month that include access to 117,970 TV Episodes, 10900 Movies, & “current seasons daily updates from all of your favorite TV series.”
Now two men have pled guilty to running the two streaming services. According to TorrentFreak, the two man can now expect a lower sentencing recommendation. They agree to cooperate fully in any further investigations and may have to provide information on and testify against the remaining six defendants when they go to trial in 2020.
According to the indictment, 8 people allegedly ran an entity called Jetflicks, an online subscription-based service headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, that permitted users to stream and, at times, download copyrighted television programs without the permission of the relevant copyright owners. One of them left and went on to create iStreamItAll also known as ISIA. It is reported that they made over a million dollars from running the service.
“The two services were not only available to subscribers over the internet but specifically designed to work on many different types of devices, platforms and software including numerous varieties of computer operating systems, smartphones, tablets, smart televisions, video game consoles, digital media players, set-top boxes and web browsers,” DOJ in a statement said.
The charges against one of the eight defendants includes “two counts of criminal copyright infringement by reproduction or distribution, two counts of criminal copyright by public performance and four counts of money laundering,” and another with “with two counts of criminal copyright infringement by distributing a copyrighted work being prepared for commercial distribution, two counts of criminal copyright infringement by reproduction or distribution, two counts of criminal copyright infringement by public performance and four counts of money laundering.”
This is one of the first major guilty pleas for running a piracy service in the United States. This case will likely set president for future cases related to piracy like IStreamItAll and Jetflix.
Did you know we have a YouTube Channel? Every week we have a live Cord Cutting Q&A, and weekly Cord Cutting recap shows exclusively on our YouTube Channel!
Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more news, tips, and reviews. Need cord cutting tech support? Join our Cord Cutting Tech Support Facebook Group for help.