A Las Vegas jury yesterday convicted a Cuban citizen and U.S. permanent resident, Yoany Vaillant, of one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Vaillant, 43, worked as a computer programmer for Jetflicks, an online, subscription-based service headquartered in Las Vegas that permitted users to stream and, at times, download copyrighted television episodes without the permission of relevant copyright owners.
At one point, Jetflicks claimed to have 183,285 different television episodes, far more than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, or any other licensed streaming service.
Evidence at trial showed that Vaillant and his co-conspirators scoured the internet to find infringing television programs from pirate sites around the world – including some of the biggest sites specializing in infringing content such as The Pirate Bay, RARBG, altHUB, and Nzbplanet – using automated software and computer scripts that ran nonstop.
Vaillant and his co-conspirators reproduced hundreds of thousands of copyrighted television episodes without authorization and streamed the infringing programs to tens of thousands of paid subscribers located throughout the United States, often providing episodes to subscribers the day after the shows originally aired on television.
The vast scale of Jetflicks’ piracy affected every significant copyright owner of a television program in the United States and resulted in millions of dollars of losses to the U.S. television show and streaming industries.
Vaillant was one of eight defendants indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia in 2019 for running Jetflicks. In that case, Vaillant’s co-defendant Darryl Polo, a computer programmer, pleaded guilty to four criminal copyright counts and one money laundering count, which related to Jetflicks as well as another illegal streaming site he operated.
Co-defendant Luis Villarino, also a computer programmer, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement at Jetflicks. The court sentenced Polo to four years and nine months in prison and Villarino to one year and one day in prison.
Defendant: Yoany Vaillant
Criminal Charges: One count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement
City and State: Las Vegas, Nevada
Exact Date: [No exact date provided]
Sentence or Outcome: Currently pending sentencing
Related Federal Cases
- Olayinka Wahab, Copyright Infringement, Maryland 2021 · Virginia
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- Ivan Petrov, Internet Fraud, California 2022 · Alabama
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- Bruce Rogat, Conspiracy to Manufacture Marijuana, Nevada 2013 · California
Key Facts
- State: Federal
- Category: Cybercrime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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