A Cuban resident in Las Vegas has been found guilty of operating one of the largest illegal streaming services in the United States, known as Jetflicks.
Yoany Vaillant, 43, was convicted by a federal jury on a charge of conspiracy to commit a criminal copyright infringement.
A statement from the Department of Justice indicates that he worked as a computer programmer for Jetflicks, an online subscription service based in Las Vegas, which allowed users to stream and occasionally download copyrighted television episodes without the permission of the rights holders.
"Vaillant and his accomplices reproduced hundreds of thousands of copyrighted television episodes without authorization and transmitted the infringing programs to tens of thousands of paying subscribers located throughout the United States, often providing episodes to subscribers the day after the programs originally aired on television," the statement outlines.
The Cuban, who had 15 years of programming experience when he started at Jetflicks and knew 27 programming languages, worked for four and a half months on the platform.
"During that time, he made significant contributions to the operation of the service, including troubleshooting issues affecting the downloading, processing, syncing, uploading, and automatic transmission of Jetflicks' inventory of infringing television episodes," the text states.
The legal proceedings against Jetflicks began in 2019 in the Eastern District of Virginia and involved a total of eight defendants, with Yoany being the last to be sentenced.
In the trial against him, which lasted two weeks, the prosecution demonstrated that all parties tracked the internet to find infringing television programs on pirated sites worldwide (including some of the most prominent ones specializing in infringing content, such as The Pirate Bay, RARBG, altHUB, and Nzbplanet), using automated software and computer scripts that operated without interruption.
"At one point, Jetflicks claimed to have 183,285 different television episodes, far surpassing Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, or any other licensed streaming service," the official information specifies.
The pirated actions of Jetflicks affected all major copyright holders of a television program in the United States and caused millions of dollars in losses to the country's television and streaming industries.
In February 2022, the court transferred the case to the District of Nevada for trial. Subsequently, Vaillant's case was separated from the others for an individual trial.
The sentences for the Cuban and the other five accused who remain (the first two have already been tried) will be announced on February 3 and 4, 2025.
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