For arguably well over 20 years now various law enforcement agencies around the world have been battling the problem of online piracy. Admittedly, we have come a long way from the early days of websites such as Kazaa and Napster (not that I’d know what they were of course) but today one of the biggest problems is websites that offer video streaming. This is, roughly speaking, one of the harder aspects of piracy to police, but that doesn’t mean to say that it’s not been watched.
A good example of this comes in a report via Engadget as American authorities have confirmed the arrest of eight people believed to have been directly involved (and probably ran) two of the largest piracy video streaming websites.
Eight Arrested In Piracy Website Crackdown
The eight people are believed to be the owners of the Jetflicks and iStreamitAll websites. They have been accused and now charged with deliberately replicated many thousands of TV programs and movies and offering them to watch online.
The websites have been operating for quite some time, but have been able to effectively skirt the law by offering themselves as ‘subscription’ services. There was, however, one small problem with that. Namely, that they were not paying license fees for many (if not all) of the programs they were offering.
What Will Happen Next?
Well, at this stage they’ll all likely be awaiting a trial date. Based on the likelihood of a successful conviction, they’ll be facing a hugely substantial fine (possible 7 digits each). In addition, probably a custodial sentence of around 2-5 years. Piracy is a crime. Organising that to potentially reach thousands of people, however, will undoubtedly get you some attention from the law!
The short version of the story I guess is that if you do choose to yet yourself involved in piracy, you might want to avoid the distribution aspect of it!
What do you think? Were you aware of these websites? – Let us know in the comments!
