Computer programmer convicted for role in Nevada-based illegal streaming service, one of the largest in the US: DOJ

A computer programmer who helped run one of the largest illegal television streaming services in the United States has been convicted by a jury in Nevada, federal prosecutors said Friday.

Yoany Vaillant, 43, a U.S. permanent resident, worked as a computer programmer for Jetflicks, a subscription-based online service in Las Vegas that allowed users to stream and download copyrighted television episodes without the permission of their owners, the Justice Department said.

He was convicted of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and is the eighth and final defendant to be convicted in the case.

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Las Vegas-based Jetflicks once claimed to have 183,285 different television episodes, far more than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Amazon Prime, Disney+ or any other licensed streaming service, authorities said. The service frequently made episodes available to subscribers, sometimes a day after they were originally broadcast on television, prosecutors said.

The massive scale of piracy affected “every major television program copyright holder in the United States and resulted in millions of dollars in losses for the U.S. television and streaming industries,” according to a DOJ press release.

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Vaillant was one of eight defendants indicted in Virginia in 2019 for carrying out jet flicks. His co-defendant, Darryl Polo, also a computer programmer, pleaded guilty to four counts of copyright infringement and one count of money laundering and was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison.

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Luis Villarino pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and was sentenced to one year in prison.

In February 2022, the case was transferred to the District of Nevada for trial before Vaillant’s case was separated from the other remaining five defendants – Dallmann, Jaurequi, Douglas Courson, Felipe Garcia and Peter Huber – all of whom were on trial in Las Vegas.

The five were found guilty of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, and Dallmann was also found guilty of three additional counts of criminal copyright infringement and two counts of money laundering by concealment.

Dallmann, Courson, Garcia, Jaurequi, Huber and Vaillant are scheduled to be sentenced in February.

According to prosecutors, the case is the largest case of Internet piracy in terms of the volume of works infringed and the first case of illegal streaming ever brought to trial.

Original source of the article: Computer programmer convicted for role in Nevada-based illegal streaming service, one of the largest in the US: DOJ