A federal grand jury has charged eight people with running two of the largest illegal streaming services in the U.S, the US Department of Justice announced Tuesday.
The streaming sites, according to the Justice Department, were called ‘Jetflicks’ and ‘iStreamItAll (ISIA).’ “The two services allegedly offered more television programs and movies than legitimate streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, and Amazon Prime Video,” the Justice Department said in a press release.
According to the Justice Department, the streaming services could be used across multiple devices and platforms, including smartphones, TVs, tablets, computers, gaming consoles, and other digital media players.
Prosecutors stated that ‘Jetflicks’ at one point boasted that it carried over 183,000 TV episodes, while ‘ISIA’ claimed to have 115,800 TV episodes and 10,500 movies. It is alleged that they gained this content by using computer code to search and download programs from global pirate sites like ‘Pirate Bay’ and ‘Torrentz.’
The eight individuals were charged with conspiracy to violate criminal copyright law, which the Justice Department said cost TV and movie copyright owners millions of dollars.
They were also charged with money laundering, criminal copyright by public performance, and criminal copyright infringement by reproduction or distribution.
