The ringleader of the Jetflicks illegal paid streaming operation, a massive service with tens of thousands of subscribers, was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Together with four other accomplices, 42-year-old Kristopher Lee Dallmann of Las Vegas, Nevada, was convicted in June 2024 of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement.
Dallmann was also found guilty by a federal jury of money laundering, criminal copyright infringement by distribution, and criminal copyright infringement by public performance.
“Dallmann reaped millions of dollars in profit from the operation. The government conservatively estimated the value of the copyright infringement in the case at $37.5 million,” the Justice Department said.
“This included the approximate retail value of the defendants’ reproduction of infringing works to create the Jetflicks inventory as well as the approximate retail value of the streams of pirated television episodes that the defendants provided to subscribers.”
During the trial, evidence revealed that the piracy ring used automated software and scripts to scan global websites for pirated content. This illegal content was then downloaded, processed, stored, and made available on servers in the United States and Canada for tens of thousands of paid subscribers to stream or download.
The Jetflicks illegal streaming service also often delivered episodes to subscribers the day after they aired on television and was designed to work across various devices and platforms.
Jetflicks operated for 12 years, from 2007 until its shutdown by the FBI in 2019, and offered over 10,500 movies and 183,000 TV episodes to its subscribers at its peak, all of which were pirated from platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, and Amazon Prime.
“This scheme generated millions of dollars in criminal profits, and hurt thousands of U.S. companies and individuals who owned the copyrights to these shows but never received a penny in compensation from Jetflicks,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti.
“By building and running one of the largest unauthorized streaming services in the U.S., these individuals not only stole from content creators and legitimate streaming services, they undermined the integrity of our economy and the rule of law,” added Assistant Director Jose A. Perez of the FBI Criminal Investigative Division.
In December 2024, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) also took down Vietnam-based Markkystreams, one of the world’s largest live sports streaming piracy networks, which received over 821 million visits last year.
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