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, aged 43, was convicted by a federal jury on charges of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. A statement from the Department of Justice highlights his role as a computer programmer for Jetflicks, a subscription-based online service headquartered in Las Vegas that allowed users to stream and occasionally download copyrighted television episodes without the consent of the copyright holders.
The DOJ report notes, "Vaillant and his accomplices reproduced hundreds of thousands of copyrighted television episodes without authorization and streamed the infringing shows to tens of thousands of paying subscribers across the United States, often providing episodes to subscribers the day after the shows originally aired on television."
The Cuban, boasting 15 years of programming experience when he joined Jetflicks, was proficient in 27 programming languages and worked for the platform for four and a half months. "During that period, he made significant contributions to the service's operations, including resolving issues affecting the automated downloading, processing, synchronization, uploading, and streaming of Jetflicks' inventory of infringing TV episodes," the report states.
Legal Proceedings and Impact
The legal case against Jetflicks began in 2019 in the Eastern District of Virginia, involving a total of eight defendants, with Yoany being the last to be sentenced. During his two-week trial, the prosecution demonstrated that all defendants scoured the internet to find infringing TV shows on pirate sites worldwide, utilizing automated software and computer scripts that ran continuously.
"At one point, Jetflicks claimed to have 183,285 different television episodes, surpassing licensed streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, or any other licensed streaming service," the official information specifies. The piracy operations of Jetflicks impacted all major copyright owners of television shows in the U.S. and resulted in millions of dollars in losses for 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. Sentencing for the Cuban and the five remaining defendants (the first two have already been tried) is scheduled for February 3 and 4, 2025.