Eight people indicted for running illegal streaming services

SAN FRANCISCO  —  Eight people were indicted on Tuesday for operating two of the largest subscription streaming platforms in the United States that illegally aired television episodes or movies, resulting in the loss of millions of dollars to copyright holders, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The defendants ran Las Vegas subscription-based streaming service Jetflicks, which at one time boasted of having more than 183,200 television episodes and provided that content to tens of thousands of paying U.S. customers, the department said.

Jetflicks illegally downloaded episodes from sites including the Pirate Bay, RARBG and Torrentz and then made some episodes available on its platform the day after they aired on TV, the department said.

A competing Las Vegas-based streaming service called iStreamItAll, which was started by a former Jetflicks employee, also was accused of violating federal copyright law. The company at one time had 115,849 TV episodes and 10,511 movies, some of which were not legally available for viewing outside a movie theater, authorities said. Subscriptions on iStreamItAll started at around $20 a month, according to its website.

The defendants are Jetflicks employees Kristopher Lee Dallmann, Douglas M. Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Edward Jaurequi, Peter H. Huber, Yoany Vaillant and Luis Angel Villarino, as well as iStreamItAll’s Darryl Julius Polo; all have been charged with conspiring to violate copyright law.

Dallmann, who lists himself as Jetflicks’ CEO on his LinkedIn page, also was charged with two counts of criminal copyright infringement by reproduction or distribution, two counts of criminal copyright by public performance and four counts of money laundering.

Polo was charged with two counts of criminal copyright infringement by distributing a copyrighted work being prepared for commercial distribution, two counts of criminal copyright infringement by reproduction or distribution, two counts of criminal copyright infringement by public performance and four counts of money laundering.

iStreamItAll and Dallmann did not immediately return a request for comment.